


Reise ohne Ende

by suna_scribbles



Series: RoE [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, Tags May Change, blitzwing has canons but this fic does not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-08-28 00:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 88,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16712560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suna_scribbles/pseuds/suna_scribbles
Summary: An unfortunate riptide lands Bumblebee and Blitzwing in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but each other and a ton of incredibly inconvenient damages. And these two don't have much interest in helping each other.Not yet, at least.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授翻：Reise ohne Ende/无休止的旅程】](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20358934) by [Lemenlon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemenlon/pseuds/Lemenlon)



“Bumblebee! On your left!”

Bumblebee’s helm whipped around just in time to dodge a blaster shot that appeared to have come from Starscream, given the distant screech of annoyance. He grinned at his own skills as he flashed a thumbs up at Optimus.

“Thanks!”

“Stay _alert,_ Bee!”

“Right! Alert! I can do alert, I’m the most alert! Oh, _slag_ —”

He ducked down again, the surrounding water preventing him from moving overly fast, but the movement was enough to move himself out of the bullet’s path. Pausing to sigh in relief, Bumblebee kicked his legs a few times to join his team behind a rock, shrugging.

“Okay, so I _thought_ I had a clear shot. That was my bad.” Bumblebee smiled weakly, shrugging his shoulders in defeat, watching a stream of bubbles flow out of Ratchet’s mouth as he sighed irritably.

“You’re gonna get offlined with behavior like that, kid.”

“We’re underwater! I’m slower than usual! If we were on dry land, I would’ve totally—”

Optimus cut him off with a pointedly raised servo, gesturing instead at the Decepticons as they drew closer and closer. They were surprisingly quick given their vast size, the deep water doing well to put everyone on even footing speed-wise. Bumblebee swished his pede around irritably. Fastest thing on land, sure. But it seemed he had work to do when it came to being the fastest thing underwater.

“It looks like it’s just the three of them,” Optimus said, peering over the top of the rock. “Lugnut, Blitzwing, and Starscream.”

“And there’s _five_ of us,” Bumblebee interjected, balling his servos into eager fists. “We can take ‘em! Come on! Don’t you wanna win for once?”

Optimus dipped back down and shook his helm, looking frustrated. “It’s too risky,” he said with finality. “We need to retreat back to dry land. If they decide to follow us, we’re more efficient above water, and we can buy some time and safety before going back to base. Prowl, you first.”

Prowl nodded and, with a single small kick, slipped effortlessly through the water, drawing the Decepticons’ attention immediately. Lugnut growled, his deep voice rumbling through the water as Prowl swam for shore.

“Retreating already, Autobots? Pathetic fools.”

Bumblebee was sent up next, and he sighed as he begrudgingly followed Prowl’s path, glancing behind him to see that the Decepticons had paused their pursuit, looking almost annoyed by their retreat. Blitzwing seemed to be the most frustrated, his exact expression hard to discern through the rippling water, but the red of his Hothead persona was impossible to miss. Bumblebee stopped mid-swim as Optimus began to move up.

“Boss bot—he’s got the red face! Fire guy won’t be able to use fire underwater, right?”

Bumblebee whirled around and drew his stingers, optics narrowed, excitement surging through his spark. This was his chance! Blitzwing was defenseless until he switched faces.

Optimus seemed less thrilled.

“Bumblebee, stop! We need to get back to base! You said it yourself; we’re too slow underwater. Follow Prowl!”

“I got this! Just give me a second!”

Bumblebee kicked his legs furiously, the Decepticon’s forms getting bigger and bigger, all of his attention focused on Blitzwing. The cannons on the triple changer’s shoulders lowered, but Bumblebee only laughed in response.

“What are you gonna do, Blitzbrain? Shoot fire at me? _Underwater?_ ”

Blitzwing’s was clear now that Bumblebee was close: twisted with anger, dentae bared.

“Don’t come any closer, bug! I will _crush_ you!”

Bumblebee merely laughed in response. He heard Optimus yelling something behind him, sounding a little panicked, but Bumblebee didn’t care. He was so close now, stingers out and charging, so intensely focused on his target that he didn’t notice Lugnut’s arm lift up, bubbles billowing from his elbow. Bumblebee grinned to himself as he pointed his stingers at Blitzwing, who was charging forward with a furious snarl.

They were just about to collide when Bumblebee’s audials were assaulted with a loud _slam_. He barely had a second to register what had happened when the water around them suddenly felt a million pounds heavier, ripping Bumblebee out of his intended path and whipping him to the side with incredible speed. Gravel and sand erupted around them, filling the water with a cloud of grey so thick that Bumblebee could barely see his servos in front of his face as he tumbled through a riptide. Instinct caught on, and he wrapped himself into a little ball to protect his frame, the water churning violently and flinging him around as if he weighed nothing.

Apparently, Lugnut’s aptly named ‘Punch of Kill Everything’ was just as much of of a deadly force underwater as it was on the surface.

Bumblebee couldn’t see anything around him, only feeling the surging water twist and turn around him, carrying him Primus knows where. A sudden blast of air against his plating made Bumblebee’s optics pop open, and he saw a flash of the clear summer sky for just a moment before his body slammed back into the water, snatched away by the riptide once again. So tidal waves, too. What a nice touch.

“Son of a—”

Bumblebee gasped as something sharp jammed into his side, energon rapidly mixing into the swirling mess of dirt and water around him. He hissed and tried to kick out of the surge, disoriented, his side throbbing with pain, only managing to shove himself into something else that nearly ripped his arm off. 

Great. There were _rocks_ everywhere. 

Bumblebee was smashed against another, his small frame careening in some direction—how far had he travelled by now? That must’ve been some punch on Lugnut’s end. The only sound was of water rushing past his audials at terrifying speed, and he might’ve been able to escape the riptide when a beige, massive _something_ slammed against his helm with a resonating, metallic _crack_. 

His processors jostled with agony, his HUD sputtered, and Bumblebee’s consciousness flickered away with a snap of white.


	2. Chapter 2

It took Bumblebee quite some time to come to, and when he did, it was not a comfortable awakening.

His vision came first, his HUD flaring and spluttering before eventually coming fully online, immediately filling his field of view with a multitude of critical failure warnings. Low fuel, frame damage, circuitry failures, waterlogged systems, damaged wiring. Bumblebee groaned as his armor loosened automatically, spewing water onto the ground below him.

Ground. Thank Primus, he was at least on dry land. Bumblebee gratefully dug his servos into the earth below him, feeling gritty sand sift between his digits. The air was warm, and the pleasant sound of water lapping at his pedes was almost enough to make Bumblebee laugh. Such a serene landscape, a stretch of ocean in front of him, a lush forest behind him, coupled with a growing mountain of violently red errors flashing across his vision.

On instinct, Bumblebee tried his comm, hoping to reach the Autobots for pickup, but received only a burst of static in response. Strange. Maybe his comm-link had gotten damaged somehow. He remembered slamming into a bunch of rocks, and his frame had not escaped unscathed—there was a massive gash in his side crusted with energon and oil and a thick, leaky dent in his arm that made it nearly impossible to bend without wincing. Bumblebee hissed and cradled his damaged arm, dismayed upon realizing the tire in his good shoulder was popped, a massive slash rendering it flat and beyond useless.

So much for _driving_ to safety.

Bumblebee tried his locator, which merely displayed a muddled, static-coated, indecipherable map. So much for _walking_ to safety. He examined the rest of his frame, which seemed mostly unharmed, save for a multitude of scratches, dents, and odd beige scuffs. Bumblebee sighed and cleared away the warnings coating his HUD, knowing full well that he had no idea how to repair himself. That, and they were starting to completely obstruct his vision.

He struggled to his pedes, gritting his dentae as his mangled arm throbbed with pain. Sparks spat out of the twisted metal, raining onto the sand. Praying that his comm-link was just suffering from some water damage, Bumblebee began to slowly amble down the beach, his pedes sinking into the sand. Maybe a good warm breeze would help to dry out his systems, and he could call for the Autobots to pick him up before the Decepticons found him first.

Wherever he was, it certainly wasn’t Detroit. The air was fresher, cleaner, the sky absent of its usual blanket smog. Bumblebee sighed and kicked at the sand, looking over the endless stretch of the lake. Maybe he’d somehow ended up on the other side and just needed to swim back. Which wouldn’t have been an issue if his stupid arm would stop pulsing with pain any time it got even remotely jostled. The peacefulness and serenity was already annoying—no comm-link to talk to anyone, no games to play, no TV to watch. Nature was pretty for about five seconds, and then it just got lame.

“Prowl would be having a blast right now,” Bumblebee grumbled in frustration, kicking at a rock. It soared down the beach and, oddly, seemed to disappear, a quiet _clink_ interrupting the sound of chirping birds and pleasantly buzzing insects. 

Bumblebee paused his walk for a moment, narrowing his optics. That wasn’t a very nature-y sound. He crept forward a few more steps, noticing right away that the beach appeared to have caved in, something very large and heavy carving a thick path through the sand. Water splashed at the edges of the pool, and Bumblebee hesitantly crept forward to examine before reeling back, nearly tripping over his own pedes.

Apparently he hadn’t been the only one caught in that riptide, and the beige scuffs across his armor were from collisions with none other than Blitzwing.

 _Scrap, scrap, scrap, oh, slagging scrap, this is so bad._ Bumblebee looked at the forest behind him, then down at the unconscious Blitzwing, whose weird monocle optic was flickering faintly, the other optic shut. Maybe he could run away? Bumblebee scrambled a few steps backwards and accidently kicked a bunch of sand onto Blitzwing’s frame, wincing as the unmistakable sound of a system reboot filled the air. 

_Scrap!_

Bumblebee backpedaled a bit more before toppling over in a panic, trying to kick more sand at Blitzwing in a feeble attempt to bury him alive. His attempts were futile, of course, and the Decepticon groaned, picking himself out of the crater his frame had carved into the ground. Water poured from the seams in his frame, his massive servos digging into the sand and carving out deep crevasses as he tugged himself upright. His scarlet optic swiveled onto Bumblebee, and they stared at each other for barely a moment before Blitzwing started to stand, lowering his cannons intimidatingly.

“How wonderful of you to make yourself such an easy—”

Blitzwing yelped as his leg suddenly gave out, twisting at an atrocious angle and sending him face-first into the ground, sand erupting around his fallen frame. Bumblebee jumped backwards to dodge, watching silently as Blitzwing growled, grabbing at his oozing leg.

“Lugnut, I’m requesting a pickup at my coordinates. …Lugnut?”

_Whirr._

“Pick up the slagging comm, you overgrown mono-optic! Get to my coordinates, _now!_ ”

Silence, then another soft _whirr._

“Oh, deary me! My comm is down!”

Blitzwing’s jagged-toothed grin widened as he laughed maniacally, and Bumblebee quickly seized his opportunity, raising his good arm and drawing a stinger. Blitzwing had clearly undergone just as much damage as Bumblebee, if not more, and would hopefully be a relatively easy target. But no sooner had he taken aim when Icy returned, an appropriately cold expression hardening his face.

“I would not recommend that, Autobot. Offlining me will only provide you with... temporary celebration.”

Bumblebee glared, keeping his arm raised, though he did refrain from shooting. For now.

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“My signal dampener has sustained damage, it seems, masking both of our signals, which is why I assume you haven’t been rescued. And if you were to take me offline, the dampener would shut down entirely.”

Bumblebee shuddered as Blitzwing grinned a little bit—his lips curved upwards, sure, but the smile didn’t reach his optics at all. It was like he was wearing two expressions at once.

“And I do believe the Decepticons will be able to reach you must faster than the Autobots could.”

Bumblebee lowered his stinger a tiny bit, trying his best to match the intimidating shimmer in Blitzwing’s optic. Blitzwing seemed quite unaffected.

“So you’d let me get away just to save your own spark?” Bumblebee scoffed, charging his stinger. “And here I thought the Decepticons weren’t total wusses.”

Bumblebee tried to ignore the fact that the he had a point—maybe it wasn’t the best idea to kill Blitzwing if he was the only reason they hadn’t been caught yet. His momentary pause gave Blitzwing enough time to haul himself fully upright, and though he grimaced as his leg cracked and started to bend in on itself, he managed to jump upright and begin to transform, his frame folding and collapsing into the all-too-familiar jet.

“Hey—wait!” Bumblebee fired at him, the sting missing and veering off. “That’s cheating! You tricked me!”

Blitzwing seemed to ignore him, his thrusters activating before a screech of agony suddenly split the air. Bumblebee covered his audials, watching in horrified awe as Blitzwing switched rapidly into a tank, slamming into the ground and creating another huge crater in the sand. His frame unfolded into root mode once again, revealing a bewildered red face for half a second before he switched back into a tank, then a jet. Bumblebee stared as he flipped around wildly for a few seconds—jet, tank, jet, robot, tank, jet, robot. With a whirr, Blitzwing’s Icy face was back, his servos gripping his side tightly, optic twitching.

Bumblebee took aim with his stinger once again, and Blitzwing glared at him.

“Leave me alone, Autobot.”

“What the frag was _that?_ ”

_Whirr._

“I said _leave me alone, insect!_ ”

“Did you break your t-cog or something?”

Blitzwing glowered at him, gap-toothed dentae bared furiously, practically frothing from the mouth.

“ _Go away!_ Before I crush you into a cube!”

Bumblebee lowered his stinger, rolling his optics and plopping down firmly in the sand.

“No. You said yourself, if I leave, the Decepticons are gonna hunt my aft down in an instant. You’re stuck with me, Blitzbrain, like it or not. At least until I can figure out how to get away from you without getting sniped.”

Blitzwing growled furiously and used his working leg to kick a pile of sand at Bumblebee, who gasped as he got a faceful of it.

“Hey!”

“I said _leave me alone!_ Get out of my sight!”

“What are you gonna do? Kick more sand at me? Run away? You can’t walk, stupid!”

Blitzwing lowered a cannon menacingly, and Bumblebee raised his hands quickly in surrender.

“Okay, okay! I’ll leave you alone. But I’m staying right over there so my life signal stays hidden. Got it?”

Blitzwing didn’t seem to be overly in favor of this development, but Bumblebee scrambled away before the triple changer could argue, nestling himself behind a tree so Blitzwing was still within his line sight. He panted, wiping sand from his face.

Of all the garbage situations to get stuck in, why, why did it have to be with this freak? Blitzwing was fragging _insane._ Grounded, luckily, but insane nonetheless. Bumblebee grabbed his bad arm tightly, realizing it was leaking once again from the flurry of movements, energon flecking the ground below him. They were both wounded, unable to call for help, leaking fuel that they couldn’t replace.

There was no possible way this could end well.

* * *

Blitzwing almost laughed as the Autobot practically flung himself behind a tree, his attempt at a tough demeanor diminished the second Blitzwing had merely lowered a cannon. The bug didn’t have to know that his weapons were apparently offline, his repair nanites focusing entirely on trying to fix his now-mangled leg and ignoring the rest of his failing systems.

Blitzwing gritted his dentae hard, tightening his grip on his side furiously. His t-cog felt like it was on fire, and it very well might have been, given the amount of smoke seeping from the seams in his armor. Being immobile due to a leg injury was one thing, but lacking the ability to transform was enough to make Blitzwing twitch. His best assets were his alt modes, and being robbed of them made him feel strange, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint why.

He reached toward his deformed leg tentatively, wishing he had any sort of tool to do repairs. Surely a medic’s job couldn’t be too difficult. Blitzwing pressed on the armor, searching for tender spots, wincing every so often when he grazed against the internals of his frame. Exposed wires lightly shocked the tips of his digits, but he ignored the minor stings, gathering his courage, grabbing his knee, and ramming the dislocated joint back into place. 

He drew a sharp breath as pain rocketed through his leg, biting his glossa nearly hard enough to make it bleed. A pained whimper escaped his lips, but he managed to keep his composure, condensation beading on his frame as the stabbing sensation slowly ebbed into a manageable discomfort.

That wouldn’t help him stand, but it would at least aid his self worth.

Blitzwing waited for the pain to subside and sorted through the warnings coating his HUD, trying to prioritize the damages. Low fuel, naturally. Dozens of warnings about his mutilated leg, of course. Weaponry offline due to water damage, signal dampener malfunctioning, thrusters offline, left wing dislocated, t-cog overheating, digits burned, minor dents and scrapes scattered across his entire frame.

Not as bad as anticipated.

Clinging desperately to his last shred of optimism, Blitzwing ran a command to see how long self-repair would take, shutting his optics in frustration at the answer. `Six deca-cycles to full recovery without assistance. Local translation: two Earth months to full recovery without assistance.`

Blitzwing clenched his servos into fists, trying to contain his anger. How long could a t-cog possibly take to repair itself? His was certainly unique, but six deca-cycles seemed ridiculous. Though he supposed self repair must be difficult without any source of fuel, and his tanks were at a meager 29% with no source of refueling in sight.

Blitzwing looked down at his shredded leg armor, wrapping a servo tightly around it in a feeble attempt to create some sort of temporary tourniquet until the energon dried enough to form some sort of seal. If only he had _something_ to weld the fuel lines, to cauterize the wound before he was entirely drained of energon, maybe he could shorten the self-repair timeline. He tried his comm-link furiously a few more times, but all he heard was static.

At least the Autobot was leaving him alone. And hopefully his pathetically tiny frame would weaken quicker than Blitzwing’s. With the flimsy vigor of an Autobot, the bug might attempt to run away and alert the Decepticons to his life signal, saving Blitzwing from this nightmarish situation. Relying on an Autobot made his tanks roil, but the reliance was based merely on the Autobot’s stupidity. That was at least passable. 

Blitzwing glanced back into the woods, noticing a tiny flash of yellow behind one of the trees. Pathetic. Blitzwing couldn’t even _walk,_ and the Autobot was still afraid of him. Blitzwing shifted his view back to the lake in front of him, trying to think of a plan to get the Autobot to run away from him. It shouldn’t be too hard to spook the tiny moron into running away, even if only for a moment.

He sighed and leaned back into the sand, wincing as his wing bent at an uncomfortable angle. Maybe all he needed to do was recharge, and he would magically wake up with a functioning leg and a t-cog that didn’t smoulder when he tried to shift forms. 

The prospect was ridiculous, but it was enough to ease Blitzwing into recharge, watching his tank capacity slip down to 28% as he drifted off.


	3. Chapter 3

_Whirr._

_Whirr._

_Whirr._

… 

“Oh, thank Primus…”

… _Whirr._

Bumblebee groaned and clasped his servos tighter over his audials, rolling into a ball in the dirt as if that would somehow help him to recharge. Apparently Blitzwing was having some insanely vivid dream while he recharged, because holy _frag_ , his faces _would not stop switching_. It wasn’t even that loud, but every irritating spin seemed to grow exponentially in volume and grate harder on Bumblebee’s audials. He was beyond tempted to move, to get a tiny bit farther away from the obnoxious spinning noise, but it was way too risky. Keeping Blitzwing within his sights could be life or death.

Though Bumblebee was starting to favor death, given how _fragging annoying_ that sound was.

He sighed and nearly popped his helm trying to muffle the sound, but every _whirr_ somehow made it past his servos. What could he possibly be dreaming about that was making him switch around like that? Eventually, as the moonlight began to stream full-force through the trees and the stars grew brighter and brighter, Bumblebee gave in to temptation and stood up. He never had been easy to wake, so as long as he started recharging before Blitzwing, he would probably manage. He was _tired_ and _hungry_ and he just wanted to _rest_.

Bumblebee strolled over to Blitzwing and paused, looking down at him for a moment. Blitzwing’s face was black now, the end of a weirdly long, thin glossa poking out between jagged dentae. Bumblebee hesitated, nervous to wake a sleeping bot, all too familiar with how cranky Ratchet would get when Bumblebee had to wake him up early. And a Decepticon with a murderous streak was sure to be even harder to deal with.

He stuck a pede out and nudged the side of Blitzwing’s helm.

“Hey.”

Blitzwing didn’t stir, though his face did switch from grinning black to expressionless blue with that insanity-inducing _whirr_. Bumblebee sighed and kicked him a little harder.

“ _Hey._ ”

Blitzwing’s optic flickered a bit, and he switched back to the black face, glossa lolling out. Bumblee nearly blew a fuse when he heard that _whirr_ again, and he furiously drew the stinger on his good arm and fired a small shot at Blitzwing’s chest.

“ _Hey!_ ”

That certainly woke Blitzwing up, and he snapped upright immediately, cannons aiming directly at Bumblebee on instinct. Bumblebee took a few steps back, stinger still drawn and sparking, trying not to let his fear show too much in his expression. Blitzwing’s face rotated to scarlet, and his voice was full of malice as he leaned toward Bumblebee menacingly.

“ _What?!_ ”

“Can you, like, stop dreaming?” Bumblebee snapped, attempting to sound firm, quite pleased that his voice only cracked twice. “Your faces keep switching, and it’s fragging annoying. And I need to recharge and conserve fuel. Which I can’t _do_ when I’m _awake._ ”

“That sounds like _your_ problem, not _mine_ ,” Blitzwing snarled, making Bumblebee flinch. Blitzwing was much better at sounding scary than he was.

“I-I asked nicely!”

“No, you didn’t, Autobot scum!”

Bumblebee sighed, wishing he was brave enough to step forward and kick Blitzwing’s big, ugly, leaking leg. “My name isn’t _Autobot_ , stupid,” he muttered angrily. “It’s Bumblebee.”

Blitzwing’s face switched to blue, that chilling half-smirk lifting one corner of his lips.

“Of course. _Bumblebee_ scum.”

Bumblebee glowered and lowered his stinger, glad to notice that Blitzwing’s optics tracked its movements with deadly precision. The idea that the triple changer might be even a tiny bit afraid of him sent confidence surging through Bumblebee’s sensors, and even though Blitzwing’s torso was as big as he was, Bumblebee puffed out his chest and tried to look stern.

“Well—just—shut up, okay?” he said, attempting to mimic the sharpness of Blitzwing’s words. “My tanks are getting really low, and I don’t want to go offline just because your dumb aft can’t recharge like a normal mech.”

Blitzwing’s expression didn’t change, but somehow, his optics got infinitely colder. Bumblebee couldn’t help but shudder a bit.

“How sad for you,” Blitzwing hissed. “Your poor engine must be so strained. Both of mine are using fuel, and _I’m_ managing to refrain from complaining about it.”

Bumblebee crossed his arms staunchly. “That’s because you’re recharging, and I’m not! I’m burning though fuel like crazy because of you!”

“Go to sleep, then.”

“Are you even listening?! I _can’t_ with you making so much noise! I’m trying to ask _nicely_ for you to just—”

“Fine,” Blitzwing growled, his voice dripping with icy sarcasm as he sliced Bumblebee’s sentence in half. “I will attempt to change my ingrained, natural habits instantaneously to please you, my enemy. I see no flaw in that logic.”

Bumblebee ignored the obvious mockery and flashed a thumbs up. “Great! Thanks.”

He ran off behind his tree again, desperate to get away from that chilling stare. That had been such an unnecessary amount of intimidation on Blitzwing’s part, but Bumblebee supposed it was probably intentional. And it had worked, after all. He’d run away. Bumblebee sighed at his own cowardice and flopped back down behind his tree, trying to shake the awful image of Blitzwing’s stony optics from his processor.

Now he couldn’t recharge for another reason. Who could after getting stared down like that? _Good job, Bee,_ he thought bitterly, watching his tanks deplete a little further. For once in his life, he cursed his powerful engine: fast as it was, it wasn’t exactly efficient. Though he was sure if Blitzwing had two, he was faring just as badly.

Not that Bumblebee cared.

He frowned bitterly and rolled over so his back was to Blitzwing. He traced a digit along the gritty dirt below him, outlining a stripe of moonlight being cast upon it. Eventually they were going to have to find fuel, and Bumblebee’s only hope was that he could chug all of it before Blitzwing got any. At least that way, he’d be fully fueled while running away from the Decepticons.

* * *

Blitzwing stared at the Autobot—Bumblebee, he supposed—as he scrambled behind the tree, once again resisting the urge to laugh. Poor little minibot. His temporary confidence had deflated in instants the second Blitzwing had simply glared him down properly. It was nice, to be at the top of food chain for once. Did Megatron feel like this every single day?

Though the Autobot—Bumblebee’s—credence had been sorely misplaced. Blitzwing hadn’t been looking at his stingers with even an ounce of concern. In fact, he doubted they could do much damage to him at all, not with the thickness of his armor.

They were small, sharp, and precise. And with the amount of electricity that ran through them, they were surely capable of getting hot enough to weld together broken parts.

Blitzwing felt uncomfortable at the very idea of asking an Autobot for help. Uncomfortable didn’t even come close to encapsulating how such a thought made him feel—dirty, traitorous, ill, and repulsed were better syntax choices, perhaps. But with his tank capacity slipping down to 27% as of a few minutes ago, Blitzwing was beginning to fear that he wouldn’t last more than a couple of days relying on his primary tanks, and emergency reserves would only give him another few hours after that.

And with a glance down at his leg, it became blatantly obvious where most of his fuel was going. At the very least, it was doing a wonderful job staining the sand a lovely shade of pink and rendering itself utterly useless. Blitzwing looked back at the minibot, gritting his dentae. Automobiles—sports cars in particular—always thought that their engines were the most important, that they needed everything catered to them… no wonder most of the Autobots were grounders. Their obnoxious holier-than-thou attitudes would certainly be their downfall.

Though Blitzwing supposed he wasn’t much better, currently struggling with the idea of asking for help from an enemy. He felt hot rage boil through his systems with a _whirr_ , though the urge to laugh overtook the swell of anger when he heard the Autobot—Bumblebee—growling in frustration. The sensation of switching faces was so natural at this point that Blitzwing only felt the burn of anger, the insistent prod of intrusive thoughts, the chill of strategy: not the switching itself. The faces just happened to match the emotions, and it was hard to discern whether Bumblebee’s annoyance at the sound was entertaining or just downright pathetic. 

Blitzwing decided on entertaining, letting his long glossa roll out as he looked up at the stars, counting them one by one and giggling when he lost track. Which happened a lot. Bumblebee was probably going to whine about it later, but Blitzwing was too busy drawing constellations to care. 

“That one is a butterfly, and that one is a hummingbird, and that one is a _bigger_ butterfly, and that one is—”

“Shut up!”

The fury bubbled up again in a blur of crimson, and Blitzwing dug up a handful of sand and hurled it in Bumblebee’s direction. “ _Blow it out your exhaust port, bug!_ ” he hollered.

He calmed down quite quickly upon hearing Bumblebee huff and flip over, and his grin stretched wide as he lifted an arm to the sky to start playing connect the dots again. Though he did keep his voice at a whisper so he wouldn’t be so rudely interrupted this time.

“That one is a lion… and that one is a tiger…”

Bumblebee was probably far too stupid to fix himself, and that could be beneficial. If Blitzwing could get the Autobot to repair his leg well enough, he could simply run away, leaving the Autobot far behind. Then the Decepticons would see Bumblebee’s signal and take him offline, putting Blitzwing back in his own berth with a repaired t-cog instead of lying in the sand like some kind of flightless fool.

“And that one is a bear… oh my!”

He giggled at his own cleverness and let his arm drop back down into the sand, deciding that counting the craters on the moon was a much more worthwhile activity than playing connect the dots. He felt cold comfort wash over him again; a plan was set in place to end this ridiculous predicament by tomorrow, and counting craters on the moon was much more efficiently done with a monocular.


	4. Chapter 4

The grey, early morning warmth wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, Blitzwing thought calmly as he watched a sun stifled by clouds try and peek over the horizon. Yesterday’s shimmering, steaming colors had faded into the cloud cover, muted into much more comfortable hues, the sand chilled below his plating rather than packed with the sun’s relentless heat.

It was late in Earth’s summer, late enough to be considered autumn to the humans who (for some reason) gave all of their seasons unique names. And while the sunrise itself was quite nice to look at, Blitzwing found himself slightly dreading the way it would inevitably heat the ground beneath him. Being so close to the water, its cool breath brushing against his pedes, was incredibly relaxing, perhaps even soothing on a leg that still stung any time it moved. 

He was prepared for the fact that the Autobot was soon going to overheat his internal systems, no doubt clumsy with his stingers at a close range, but it would be worth it. The prize was a wonderfully temperature-controlled room on the Nemesis. He could stand a little heat in the meantime. 

Metaphorically speaking.

Blitzwing used his early awakening to his advantage and examined his wound, trying to pinpoint which wires had ripped from where and what needed to be reconnected. The area was a gnarled, crusted mess, and it was with a sinking feeling that he realized that Bumblebee was likely going to have to clean it for him before he could get any clear idea of how to care for it. Blitzwing grimaced at the thought. This was a depressing low, not only letting an Autobot clean him as if he were a helpless sparkling, but requesting it. The thought alone made anger seep into his wiring, but he pushed it away, lest the sound of a switching face put the bug in a bad mood before unpracticed surgery.

He leaned forward to try scooping up some water from the lake, wincing almost immediately and resting back once again. His whole leg felt stiff and hot to the touch, and attempting to bend it proved to only deepen the ache that was lingering deep below what Blitzwing’s large hands could reach.

Blitzwing sighed, spending the next few hours debating whether he was looking forward to Bumblebee waking up or dreading it completely. His answer came quickly when he heard the shuffling of dirt and leaves behind him—unfortunately, he was eager. Not eager to have to deal with Bumblebee again, of course not, but to finally get the process of escaping underway. Maybe he could even manage it before the sand grew warm.

Blitzwing turned his helm to see Bumblebee creeping toward him slowly, and Blitzwing’s grin stretched audial to audial when the bug froze in place.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Blitzwing sang, cackling when Bumblebee visibly shuddered.

“I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you or anything,” Bumblebee said, immediately attempting to recover from his pathetic shivering by standing up overly straight. The effect of bravery was significantly lessened by the fact that his left arm was still being cradled at an awkward angle, apparently not in much better shape than Blitzwing’s leg.

Blitzwing’s excited demeanor hardened into mild disdain. At least the Autobot could _walk_.

“I wasn’t accusing you of doing so,” Blitzwing said coldly. “In fact, I am glad to see you awake.”

Bumblebee’s optics narrowed sharply, vibrant and blue against the grey sky behind him. He really did stick out like a sore thumb, Blitzwing found himself thinking absentmindedly. Bright yellow paint, bright blue optics, bright red insignia. A walking strain on the optics, really. 

“ _Glad_ to see me,” Bumblebee repeated incredulously, snapping Blitzwing away from his observations. “ _Glad?_ ”

“Thank you for reminding me that you aren’t deaf.”

“S-shut up!” Bumblebee spluttered, and Blitzwing found himself smirking. For a mech with so much cockiness, he would have assumed the bug would be at least a _little_ difficult to fluster. Over-inflated egos were the most delicate, he supposed.

“Hey, Blitzbrain!” Bumblebee snapped, once again dragging Blitzwing from his thoughts. “The frag do you mean by _glad?_ ”

“I mean what I said,” Blitzwing continued with a tart sigh, examining his fingertips. “I do believe your tanks are getting quite low, are they not?”

Bumblebee didn’t answer, opting to stare suspiciously instead. Blitzwing didn’t blame him. He was being rather cryptic, after all.

“And you have no way of leaving the immediate vicinity without me coming with, correct?”

Bumblebee stuck out his bottom lip in a way that reminded Blitzwing of a grouchy sparkling, and he had to focus a lot of energy on not laughing yet again.

“Uh huh,” Bumblebee said slowly, his overblown pose slumping just a little bit.

Blitzwing swallowed what was left of his pride and pointed at his mangled leg, keeping his expression even. “It needs to be cleaned,” he said plainly. “And I think your little stingers might be able to repair some of the damage.”

Predictably, Bumblebee shook his helm without hesitation. “I’m not _helping_ you!” he said, sounding almost offended.

Anger bubbled up in Blitzwing’s sensors, and he dug his hands into the sand, fully prepared to hurl handfuls of it at the puny Autobot. “Then _starve_ to death for all I care, you worthless scrap heap!”

Bumblebee stuck his lower lip out further, folding his arms—almost—over his chest. “Why in the world would I _help_ you?” he asked harshly. “So you can run away and leave me to be pounded into sheet metal? Nuh uh. Not happening. I don’t even know _how_.”

Blitzwing forced himself to be calm once again, ignoring the optic roll he earned as his face shifted back to blue. “I will not leave,” he said carefully. “I just want to be repaired. Then I will help you with your injuries, and we can go our separate ways.”

“Nope!” Bumblebee looked both irritated and amused with his own stubbornness. “And like I said, I don’t know how to fix you. So, tough.”

Blitzwing growled, red-hot anger rolling over him once again. “Then you will die a horrible death, and I will _laugh_ at your pathetic, tiny body as it turns into _iron filings!_ ”

Bumblebee seemed to struggle for a little bit before folding his arms a little tighter. “Fine,” he muttered. “But I’m fixing myself first. Just so you can prove that you’re actually somewhat capable.”

“ _Like hell you are!_ ”

“Then _you_ die a horrible death!” Bumblebee started pacing a little, tapping his fingers on his arm restlessly, and Blitzwing feared he may blow a fuse because of how annoying it was. “You’re asking me for help, so you have to take what you can get! Show me how to fix my arm, and I’ll fix your stupid, ugly leg. And you know I will, because I can’t leave you without getting found by a horde of Cons!”

Blitzwing gritted his dentae. “You worthless Autobot,” he sneered.

“ _Bumblebee._ ”

“You worthless _Bumblebee_ , then! You think that you can _push me around_ just because—”

“No, I think you’re a dirty, disgusting Con who'll double cross me the second you get a chance!” Bumblebee snapped. “Show me how to fix my arm! Or fix your signal dampener so I can leave!”

“ _I don’t know how!_ ”

“So you see why I don’t trust you to know how to fix a leg!”

“It’s human technology! I will never succumb to learning about something so... _lame._ ”

Bumblebee glared at Blitzwing for a moment, giving Blitzwing a chance to figure out how to get out of this. His plan was crumbling before his very optics, and while Bumblebee was stupid, apparently he wasn’t stupid enough. Blitzwing growled for a little while longer, giving Bumblebee a chance to bravely sit down next to him and hold his damaged left arm out.

“Fix it,” he said, “or we both die.”

Blitzwing contemplating decking him right in his stupid yellow face. Seeing his cheek dented would be a nice reminder for both of them about how much more powerful Blitzwing was. But he willed himself to calm down, knowing that he didn’t have much of a choice. Bumblebee was as stubborn as he was idiotic. He sighed and took Bumblebee’s arm, zooming in with his monocular to check over the damages.

“Bear in mind that I’m not a medic,” Blitzwing said coldly. “But this looks like a relatively simple injury.”

“Yeah, well, it hurts like hell,” Bumblebee grumbled.

“Hush. It seems like there are some small wires that came loose, and a severed energon line. Your stinger should be capable of welding it back in place, and repair nanites can take care of the more minor damages.” Blitzwing smirked a bit. “ _This_ is what you’ve been complaining about?”

“It hurts!” Bumblebee stuck his lip out indignantly again.

“I’m sure it does.” Blitzwing pointed to the energon line, which was leaking feebly. Self repair seemed to be doing at least a little bit of work on it, but it was still caked with dried energon and oil, oozing and staining the shiny yellow finish. “Start with that. Put your stinger on a low setting, bend your arm so the injury closes, and heat the area enough that it will stay shut. Then don’t move until it cools down.”

“But—” Bumblebee stared at him. “That’ll hurt!”

Blitzwing nearly blew a gasket, and he bared his dentae gap-toothed dentae again. “ _Then do it quickly, Autobot!_ ”

“It’s _Bumblebee!_ And stop getting all pissed off at me. You yell too loud when you’re all red.”

“ _I’ll stop yelling if you stop being so annoying!_ ”

“ _Bite me!_ ”

Bumblebee drew a stinger angrily, the air crackling with electricity, and Blitzwing reached out to grab his other arm as well, shoving it back, cold amusement taking over his frame.

“I said _low_ setting, Autob— Bumblebee. Do you _want_ to fry your systems?”

Bumblebee scoffed. “This _is_ low,” he fired back.

“Then go lower.”

Bumblebee rolled his optics but obliged nonetheless, seeming to struggle to get his stinger down to a steady hum. “This isn’t going to work,” he said, looking almost nervous.

Blitzwing shrugged. “Perhaps. But you have few better options.”

Bumblebee bit his lip and started to move the fine tip of the stinger towards his injury. Blitzwing halted him once again, squeezing his arm tightly.

“Stop being pathetic,” he grumbled. “If you’re shaking, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“And you care why?”

“Because if you hurt _me_ as well, I’ll offline you in an instant.”

“When I’m the only one that can fix your leg? Fat chance.” Bumblebee took a few moments to steady his trembling stinger, bending and rotating his arm a few times to get the proper angle before pressing the tip to the cracked cabling. His pain immediately showed in his face, and predictably, in his words as well.

“This really hurts,” he said through clenched dentae, voice cracking on every vowel.

Blitzwing rolled his optics. “Stop complaining.”

They both watched silently as Bumblebee held his stinger in place for some time, the cabling slowly turning crimson and bleeding back together, and eventually Blitzwing tapped his arm a few times with one finger.

“That’s enough,” he said. “Pull the stinger back and let it cool. Don’t move.”

Bumblebee seemed happy to do so, his servo coming back into view and grabbing onto the searing metal. He was panting a little, servo shaky, but when he withdrew, the line seemed to have stopped leaking. His face lit up.

“Hey, it worked!”

Blitzwing ignored his excitement. “Fix the rest and take care of my leg,” he said shortly.

“R-right.”

Bumblebee seemed to inflate with confidence as he had yesterday, prodding wires into place and refastening them. His progress was incredibly slow, which Blitzwing could at least appreciate to some degree. He’d expected the reckless Autobot to burn the slag out of himself, though Blitzwing supposed when one was worrying about their own pain sensors, it was natural to be a little more careful. He doubted Bumblebee would have the same regard for _his_ pain sensors.

When Bumblebee had finally finished, he started flexing his arm slowly, looking obnoxiously smug. “Look at that,” he said proudly. ‘I’m practically Ratchet.”

He extended his arm a little too fast in his excitement and winced, grabbing it again. “Ow.”

Blitzwing sighed. “If you’re finished being self-satisfied, we did have a deal,” he reminded him.

“Ugh, right. Okay.” Bumblebee scooted himself down to Blitzwing’s leg, prodding it a few times. “Does that hurt?”

Mid-grimace, Blitzwing considered punching the moron once again. “Yes,” he hissed.

“This is gnarly, Blitzbrain. Hold on.” Bumblebee crawled toward the water and took a handful of it in his servos, dropping it over the wound and rubbing it in to wash away some of the sludge. Blitzwing forced himself not to make a sound, refusing to show any indication of how much that stung. Humiliating as this was, at least he didn’t have to _ask_ the Autobot to clean him.

“Do you know what’s wrong with it?” Bumblebee asked, one of his fingers catching on an exposed transistor in his hasty cleansing. Blitzwing had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out.

“No,” he growled, though he felt his grin stretching wide even through his annoyance. “Hard to diagnose what you can’t see!”

He giggled, and Bumblebee rolled his optics, grabbing another handful of water and dousing the wound once again and flicking away the chunks of gore that sloughed off. 

“Could you _look_ so we can get this over with?” Bumblebee asked, and Blitzwing cackled again.

“But you were acting like so much of an expert before!” he said gleefully. “You can do it!”

“Uh, no? I can’t?”

“Aw, sure you can!”

“No, I can’t!”

“ _No, I can’t!_ ”

“Stop repeating me!”

“ _Stop repeating me!_ ”

Bumblebee smirked. “I’m a big ugly idiot,” he said, looking at Blitzwing expectantly. Blitzwing just cackled louder.

“Well, I’m not sure about ‘big,’ but ‘ugly idiot’ sounds about right!”

Bumblebee retaliated by sticking a finger harshly into Blitzwing’s injury, and he yelped in pain, anger bubbling over as he swung a fist out, catching Bumblebee square in the jaw. The Autobot cried out and jumped backwards, clutching his cheek.

“Hey!”

“ _Don’t do that, bug!_ ”

“You started it!”

“ _You_ started it!”

Bumblebee stuck a digit out threateningly toward Blitzwing’s injury again, and Blitzwing balked at the sight, digging his hands angrily into the sand. Stupid Autobot, abusing his leverage. He glowered for a few more moments before regaining his composure with a sigh. He leaned down to peer at the injury, which was just as bad as he’d anticipated: diodes and capilers misaligned, a huge slice through the knee joint, energon lines severed, the sharp ends of wires jabbing into delicate circuitry. 

“Looks bad,” Bumblebee said dumbly. Blitzwing smirked at him.

“Keen observation,” he replied calmly, practically seeing the irritated gears shifting in Bumblebee’s processor. “Do you see the deflection encoder above the treads?”

Blitzwing should have expected the perplexed look on Bumblebee’s face, but even with preparation, it annoyed him nonetheless.

“The what?”

“The deflection encoder.”

“Thanks, I’m not deaf.”

Blitzwing’s sighs were growing significantly more labored. “The small round thing behind the purple plating.”

Bumblebee examined for a bit before poking it. “This?”

Blitzwing bit his cheek so hard that it nearly bled. “Yes, that. It’s not supposed to be exposed like that, so please don’t _touch_ it,” he snarled.

“Oh. Oops. What about it?”

“Behind it, there’s a mesh pipe with a large gash in it. That needs to be fixed first, or I’ll keep leaking and ruin anything else you try to do.”

Bumblebee craned his little neck to try and see before flopping onto his back and sliding under Blitzwing’s bent leg. “Oh! Okay!” His stinger crackled with sparks as he activated it, and Blitzwing grabbed his arm again.

“ _Low_ , Autobot.”

“I was gonna, would you relax?” Bumblebee cranked down the power and pressed the tip of his stinger to Blitzwing’s leg, and he immediately realized where the complaints had come from; there were few sensations that were so concentratedly uncomfortable as this, though Blitzwing at least managed not to vocally whine about it. He hissed a little, his HUD lighting up with warnings, and Bumblebee smirked up at him.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he said, sounding almost proud of himself.

“Hush.”

Once the area was smoking and sparking with heat, Bumblebee started to bend Blitzwing’s knee a little, and Blitzwing shoved him away. “I can handle it myself, insect,” he snapped, waiting for the disconnected mesh to intertwine and sitting calmly as it melted back together. Bumblebee pouted.

“Do you want my help or not?” he asked.

“I want nothing. I need your _help_ , not your undying assistance,” Blitzwing said coldly.

“Fine. Do the rest yourself.”

“Don’t be childish.”

“Don’t— don’t be ugly, then!”

Blitzwing was already sick of this, but he was at least grateful to see the flashing error in the corner of his HUD sputter out of sight as the joint resealed itself. Thank Primus. That had been driving him mad. He dragged Bumblebee upright, much to Bumblebee’s displeasure, and pointed at the side of his knee.

“There’s a loose capacitor on the side,” Blitzwing said pointedly.

Bumblebee raised a brow. “And?”

“Fix it.”

“Stop being such an aft and I will.”

Blitzwing momentarily wished he had just gone offline underwater. “Please fix it,” he hissed. Bumblebee smirked and set to work, prodding things back into place. 

“I hope you always remember that you said that to me,” he said with a little chuckle. Blitzwing saw red for only a moment, ready to punch again, but figured smacking his only hope at not starving to death mid-repair might not be the best idea. He simply groaned internally.

“The constant reminder that I asked you for help will be all the more reason to offline you when this ridiculousness has concluded.”

Bumblebee scoffed. “Ditto, Blitzbrain.”

* * *

Bumblebee wasn’t sure exactly why he woke up in the dead of night, his optics flashing open as a strange swooping feeling tied his tanks into knots, but he was alert almost immediately. He sat upright and scanned the beach for Blitzwing, hating that he was relieved to see the triple changer still laying there.

Relying on a Decepticon, even if it was only on his signal dampener, made Bumblebee feel sick. He hated it with every fiber of his being. Even though Blitzwing’s leg was still too flimsy to walk, Bumblebee knew that the second he was capable, he was going to try to run away. What else would he expect from a Decepticon?

Oh, gross. He was going to have to start waking up _early_ to ensure that Blitzwing didn’t flee.

Bumblebee lay back down, trying to shut his optics and go back into recharge. Maybe it was the fleeting panic that Blitzwing was going to leave in the middle of the night that had awoken Bumblebee, but that thought brought him no comfort. All he knew for sure was that his tanks were at a dangerously low 15%, his arm still ached with the aftereffects of his meager repair, and that no matter how many pings he sent to his team, they all returned with a crimson `failed to send` warning lighting his HUD.

They probably thought he was offline.

Bumblebee rolled over against his tree, grateful that he could at least wrap both arms around it, albeit slowly. Blitzwing’s face switched mid-dream, and Bumblebee grumbled quietly to himself. Waking up a sleeping beast had proven to be a terrible idea, annoying as that sound was. He’d just have to endure.

What was Blitzwing even dreaming about? Bumblebee listened for a little while, trying to discern some sort of pattern. There were a few times when the switching would be slow, maybe one switch every ten minutes, but there was an occasional rapidfire switch as if Blitzwing didn’t know what he was feeling. At least five quick _whirrs_ , one almost instantaneously after the other, before settling back to the slower rhythm. Bumblebee waited a full hour for another instance of the speedy swaps, wondering why he’d even bothered, given that it made him twitch just to hear it.

He sent another desperate ping to Optimus. 

`Failed to send.`

Blitzwing’s face switched again.


	5. Chapter 5

The silence was already starting to make Bumblebee twitch, and they’d only been walking for five minutes.

Or, rather, Bumblebee had been walking. Blitzwing was lumbering along behind him, the creaking of his barely-repaired leg incredibly loud against the calm sounds of nature that Prowl would certainly be envious of. His limp was beyond obvious, but his expression was stoic, that creepy red monocle locked on Bumblebee every time he turned around.

Bumblebee was still pretty convinced that Blitzwing was going to try to run away from him at the first possible opportunity. But with Blitzwing’s leg only barely walkable, that concern could wait another couple of days at least.

Though the slowness and silence was borderline agonizing.

“Can’t you go any faster?” Bumblebee asked, forced to double back once again as Blitzwing fell even further behind. Blitzwing glared down at him with a cold, dead expression that made Bumblebee shiver.

“No,” he said through clenched dentae. “Can you contain your incessant need to run everywhere?”

“No!” Bumblebee snapped, practically jogging in place. “My tanks are at 9%. I’m _impatient_ because I don’t want to go _offline._ ”

“Mine are at 7%, bug,” Blitzwing hissed. “But you won’t hear me complaining on and on about it.”

Bumblebee almost— _almost_ —felt a pang of guilt. Blitzwing was undeniably massive, at least triple Bumblebee’s size, double the amount of engines, and a leg that was apparently causing him a significant amount of pain given how labored his breathing was. His HUD had probably shrieking at him to get some fuel ever since they had arrived here. But Bumblebee settled on rolling his optics instead, slipping through the trees and looking around for any sort of miracle.

“I don’t even know where we _are_ ,” he mumbled, mostly to himself just to keep the silence at bay. “How are we supposed to find _anything_ if I don’t know where we are? And yeah, I’m the scout, that’s the job, but this is just trees! No rocks, no cliffs, no _nothing_ that would have energon in it. Not even a car to steal oil from. We’re in the middle of _nowhere_ , all because of _Lugnut_ and his stupid _punch_. I bet he’s real proud of himself. I hate that stupid fragger, in the middle of a _lake_ , what was he—”

“Do you talk to fill the silence, or do you just like hearing your own voice?”

Bumblebee whipped around and glared at Blitzwing, who was wearing that awful smirk again, wide enough to be mocking but composed enough that Bumblebee wondered if he genuinely wanted an answer. Regardless, Bumblebee’s servos clenched into fists, and he stomped over to Blitzwing and began punching his thigh irritably.

“You’re not exactly making for good conversation, so blow it out your actuator, Blitzbrain!” he yelled, one punch per word, spooking a few nearby birds enough that they flew away to take refuge somewhere else. Blitzwing kept watching Bumblebee until he had sufficiently gotten his anger out, then raised a brow.

“Are you done?”

Bumblebee rolled his optics hard and gave Blitzwing one more punch, stomping forward once again. He was exhausted and hungrier than he’d ever been, and Blitzwing was proving absolutely no help in trying to locate any fuel. Every obnoxiously heavy footstep he took made Bumblebee’s anger tip higher and higher, and he eventually spun around on his heel to see Blitzwing leaning against a tree with obviously false nonchalance.

“Can you _hurry up_?”

“We’d be going a lot faster without you stopping to pester me every two minutes.”

“No, we wouldn’t! You’re just trying to get me to run ahead so my signal gets caught, and it’s not gonna work!”

Blitzwing’s face flashed to red, and he slammed a fist against the tree so hard that a squirrel fell straight out of it and collapsed onto the ground in a confused panic. “ _Shut up, bug!_ ” Blitzwing screamed, sending every bird in the vicinity flapping away in terror. “ _I can barely walk, and you’re taking us in circles!_ ”

“If you knew how to fix a fragging signal dampener,” Bumblebee retorted harshly, “we could use a _map_! But _no_ , you’re clueless!”

“ _Tell that to your arm!_ ”

“It still _hurts_ , you know!”

“But it _works!_ ”

Bumblebee cried out in frustration and yanked furiously on his horns, kicking a tree a few times. “This is fragging stupid!” he shouted. “I’m spending my last moments alive walking around in circles with a jerk Decepticon, scrounging for fuel that may or may not exist. And if we don’t find it, we’re going to crumble up and _die_!”

 _Whirr._ Bumblebee groaned without even having to look at the massive grin on Blitzwing’s face.

“It’s fine to go in circles! _Ring around the rosie—_ ”

“Shut _up_ , Blitzwing!”

“ _A pocketful of posies! Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!_ ”

Blitzwing cackled maniacally, and Bumblebee began smacking his helm against the tree he’d just kicked. He’d prefer to be stuck with Lugnut over this bonkers excuse for a mech. He ran a bit farther away, attempting to get away from the onslaught of singing Blitzwing had merrily launched into as he limped along, slamming into trees gracelessly for support. 

So much for staying under the radar.

Nearly an hour later, Bumblebee’s pursuit only paused when he heard a faint sound in the distance, and he held an arm out to stop Blitzwing from moving. The singing finally stopped—Primus, had the freak really been singing this whole time? 

Bumblebee strained his audials to listen, filled with glee at hearing the telltale sound of an engine starting, the warm rumble of a vehicle backing up and driving away, its tires crunching over fallen leaves and what must have been gravel.

Bumblebee glanced bitterly at his popped tire. Stingers couldn’t fix _that_.

“I think I heard a car,” he said quietly. 

_Whirr._

“Curious. And why does that help us at all?”

Bumblebee swore his optics were starting to ache from all the rolling they’d been doing. “It means there’s cars nearby,” he said, holding up a finger to shush Blitzwing, who was surely about to remind him that he’d once again stated the obvious. “Which means there might be gasoline or something, too.”

His tanks practically moaned in delight—gasoline was far from an ideal fuel, but it would suffice while they looked for energon. Bumblebee’s rushed toward where the sound had been, ignoring Blitzwing’s irritated grumbling as his leg prevented him from keeping pace. Bumblebee’s pace quickened to a jog, and then a run.

“Come on, Blitzbrain! Might be a garage or something, or some kind of shed—”

The next few moments happened very quickly. Bumblebee’s pedes suddenly gave out from underneath him—or rather, the ground did—and he realized a second too late that there were indeed some cliffs in these woods. He yelped and tried to scramble backwards, the tires on his ankles screeching and spitting up dirt.

“Slag—!”

A loud snap sounded behind him, and Bumblebee felt himself being dragged harshly back by a very large, very strong grip on his arm. He gasped in surprise as his pedes found firm ground again, and he quickly wrenched his arm from Blitzwing’s icy grip and glared at him, trying to ignore how panicked his breathing was.

“What the heck, Blitzbrain?” he yelled, pushing farther away from the weak dirt that had betrayed him. “Why’d you do that? I was fine!”

Blitzwing looked even less pleased than Bumblebee felt, if that was even possible, and sank down into a sitting position, wrapping his servos around his massive leg.

“This was too far to walk,” Blitzwing shot back. _Whirr._ “Your pathetic recklessness opened my leg again, _bug!_ ”

Bumblebee glanced down at Blitzwing’s servos, energon seeping out thickly from between each digit. “Oops,” he said weakly.

“ _‘Oops’ is right, idiot!_ ” Blitzwing spat, his visor shockingly dim, the barest breath of a violently red warning visibly blinking on the inside. “Go get that fuel before I’m forced onto emergency reserves!”

“Jeez, what did you _think_ I was doing?” Still rubbing his arm, which was dented from how viciously Blitzwing had grabbed him, Bumblebee inched to the edge of the cliff. There was a little shed resting pleasantly down below, the ceiling tiles sprinkled with bits of dirt presumably kicked up by Bumblebee.

“It’s right down there,” he said, practically drooling as his tanks dipped a little lower, the warning on his HUD getting a little brighter. “Wait right here.”

“ _Because I have so much of a choice!_ ”

“You want fuel or not, ugly?”

Blitzwing’s face spun back to blue, and while he still looked put out, the change in volume was appreciated. “Just go,” he hissed.

Bumblebee didn’t need telling twice. He scooted forward a few feet to the edge of the cliff, which wasn’t even that high in retrospect, and carefully slid down, praying that there was something useful in that shed. They were absolutely slagged if not—or, rather, Bumblebee was slagged. Blitzwing would just die, and Bumblebee would get demolished by Decepticons.

And with empty tanks, no less.

He kept his digits crossed as he reached the bottom, glancing around hopefully for humans and finding none. As quietly as he could, he crept toward the little shed, prying the door open with ease and squeezing through as best he could.

The moment he made it inside, relief washed over Bumblebee so strongly that he nearly toppled over. Wherever they were, apparently there were a lot of vehicles running around, because the shed was filled with mechanical supplies: wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, jacks, mallets, and most importantly, oil and gasoline. Bumblebee could have cried at the sight of the red gas cans lining the walls.

Maybe this was some sort of park, and the car they’d heard had been a ranger. Whatever. The source of the materials was none of Bumblebee’s concern. He immediately rushed to the shelves, nearly smacking his helm against the ceiling in his haste, and loaded up his arms with gas cans and a few tools he recognized from Ratchet’s medbay.

Anything to get Blitzwing to stop walking so fragging slowly.

It took a decent amount of effort to climb back up the cliff with his arms full, but the second he did, he practically threw the canisters at Blitzwing, happier than he’d felt in days.

“Look,” he said breathlessly. “There were tools! Actual tools! And _fuel_! I haven’t been this low on fuel in ages, give that back.”

“You threw it at me,” Blitzwing said, unamused as Bumblebee grabbed one of the cans, sticking the nozzle in his mouth and chugging like he’d never fueled before in his life. A new warning spat onto his HUD, telling him that the fuel was inefficient at best, and Bumblebee whisked it away, draining one can and immediately starting on another. His purge protocols wanted him to get rid of this garbage, to get some real energon, but his tank capacity slowly increased nonetheless, albeit with some complaints spreading on his HUD. 

Blitzwing seemed to be just as eager, though he was much more quiet about picking up some of the cans and sucking them dry. They sat in silence for quite some time, drinking with their optics closed in relief, and for a moment, Bumblebee forgot that Blitzwing was even there. He was just enjoying watching his capacity go from 7% to 25%, then to 50%, then 75%.

Once he reached full capacity, Bumblebee sighed deeply and flopped backwards in the dirt, keeping his optics shut tightly so he could just enjoy the feeling of not having a near-empty tank. Blitzwing seemed to go through at least double the amount of canisters that Bumblebee had, and it was at least five more minutes before Bumblebee felt the chill of his mono-optic glare once again.

Bumblebee’s optics slid open. “What?”

Blitzwing was, in fact, staring at him. “You are aware that this is inefficient fuel,” he said pointedly. 

“So?”

“So, we are going to have to consume it with extreme regularity.”

“Relax. There’s a whole shed full of the stuff down there. We’ll be fine.”

Blitzwing looked a little skeptical but said nothing, reaching for some of the tools Bumblebee had sprayed everywhere and gesturing to his leg.

“Heat this up for me, will you?”

Bumblebee frowned at him for a moment before sliding over and drawing a stinger, keeping the setting as low as possible and pressing it to Blitzwing’s freshly damaged leg. It took a little longer to weld, given that it was spewing energon over Bumblebee’s arm, but he eventually managed, leaving Blitzwing to tighten the loose bolts as he saw fit.

Bumblebee watched for a little bit, chewing on the end of a nozzle to keep himself busy, before the silence irked him once again. “Hey, Blitzbrain?”

“What?”

“Why did you grab me like that?”

Blitzwing glanced up at Bumblebee, then down at his servo.

“My leg was already weakening,” he said simply. “I knew I’d need your stingers to properly repair it again. I wouldn’t have made it down the cliff if you’d fallen.”

“It wasn’t _that_ far.”

“The last thing we need is for you to be incapacitated until we are discovered by humans,” Blitzwing said, his voice growing harsher. “They like Autobots. They do not like Decepticons.”

Bumblebee paused. That was a fair enough point. “Well, I mean… thanks. Even if it was a totally selfish move.”

Blitzwing glanced up at him for a short moment before looking back down to his leg, prodding a few wires around with the tip of a screwdriver that was comically small in his massive servo.

“I need to stay here until my leg regains functionality,” he said, proving that he was indeed ignoring Bumblebee’s statement. “You are welcome to leave.”

“Not a chance.”

“That’s that I thought. So do me a favor and stop chewing on that gas can. The sound is driving me insane.”

“Hmph. As if you weren’t already.”

* * *

After about three hours of arguing, Blitzwing and Bumblebee eventually came to the agreement that they’d stay where they were for the night instead of going back to the beach. Blitzwing had been quite opposed to the idea of being so close to what was obviously a human-infested area, but apparently Bumblebee was sick and tired of how slow Blitzwing was and had put his foot down about staying put.

Given that he was the only one currently capable of putting a foot down, Blitzwing had no choice but to give in to the ridiculous whims of an Autobot.

Bumblebee had scooted away as the sun set to curl around a tree, going into recharge surprisingly quickly. Blitzwing had expected him to toss and turn like the maniac he was, but after about five minutes of the predicted and vicious flailing, Bumblebee’s vents slowed and the blue glow of his optics went dark. 

Blitzwing was grateful for the respite, to say the least. The Autobot was quite possibly the most annoying mech he’d ever been forced to tolerate, and he spent most of his time with _Lugnut_ , so that was saying something.

Once the moon was bright enough for Blitzwing to see—barely, but it would have to suffice—he slowly crawled to the stash of tools and empty gas canisters, plucking a wrench from the pile. He took great care to move as silently as he could, and even though his mass nearly uprooted a tree, Bumblebee didn’t stir.

Perfect.

Blitzwing let a tiny grin creep onto his face as he checked over his leg once again, tightening the bolts even more, prodding at the cabling to ensure that it was secure. It held fast, and as long as he didn’t try to move too quickly, he should be fine. He didn’t have to go far.

Using a tree trunk for support, Blitzwing pushed himself into a standing position, wincing a little as pain radiated through his sensors, but the warnings that blinked on his HUD didn’t appear to be overly serious. His leg was stiff but usable, and with a quick glance back at the slumbering Bumblebee, he began to haul himself in the opposite direction.

This ended now.

His progress was slow, and Blitzwing had no idea how large his signal dampener’s range was extending, but he knew he’d reach the limit eventually. Navigation wasn’t a priority. He merely needed to walk straight forward and he’d be away from that idiot once and for all.

Every snap of a twig made Blitzwing wince, and he glanced back occasionally at the faint yellow glow of Bumblebee’s armor in the moonlight, but it didn’t appear to be moving. He sighed in quiet relief.

He took a temporary pause to ensure that his leg wasn’t going to give out again before pressing forward, watching Bumblebee’s form vanish into the distance. Immediately upon seeing nothing but grey and brown in the landscape, a huge wave of relief swept over Blitzwing, and he forced himself to move a little faster. His signal dampener surely didn’t stretch _that_ far. Just a little further, just a few more steps, and he could get this leg taken care of properly.

And, more importantly, his t-cog and weaponry. What he wouldn’t give to switch to tank mode and blow Bumblebee to bits.

Blitzwing gritted his dentae as the errors on his HUD started getting more insistent, urging him to slow down, to take a quick break so he didn’t exacerbate his injury. He swept them away and kept going, waiting for the familiar sound of Lugnut’s obnoxious engine to come save him from this hell he’d be swept into. Even if it was Lugnut’s fault that he was stuck here in the first place, Blitzwing would be thrilled to see the—

“ _Hey!_ ”

Blitzwing froze, his vision clouding with scarlet, and he whirled around to see the Autobot chasing after him quite frantically. He looked as if he was still halfway in the grips of recharge, his optics hazy and flickering slightly, but his speed didn’t seen suffer the same effects. Blitzwing lowered his cannons and tried to fire, spitting smoke and sparks and nothing more, which only infuriated both of them more. 

“ _Why are you following me, insect?_ ”

Bumblebee didn’t answer, instead running straight to Blitzwing’s leg and jamming a fist into the back of his knee. Blitzwing screamed in pain and lashed out with his other leg, catching Bumblebee in the stomach hard enough to send him careening into a tree. But of course, the persistent little bug scrambled back upright, pointing a finger accusingly while staying carefully out of kicking range.

“You were running away, you aft! Don’t do that! I’m gonna get caught!”

“ _That was the plan, you puny gas-guzzler!_ ”

Bumblebee huffed furiously, clenching his little servos into fists, looking for a moment as if he wanted to punch Blitzwing again but decided the repercussions weren’t worth it. 

“Pull that slag again, and I’m never fixing your stupid leg ever again,” he hollered. “I’m not kidding! I’ll slice it open while you recharge so you _never_ walk again.”

Blitzwing barked with laughter. “I’d love to see you try,” he retorted harshly.

Bumblebee’s optics narrowed even further, and he trudged toward Blitzwing who instinctively poised to kick again. But rather than attack, Bumblebee just plopped down into the dirt and shut his optics fully, still wearing a deep scowl.

“Shut up and recharge,” he muttered. “We’ll get out of here eventually. Just work with me in the meantime, and I promise, I’ll do my best to slag you later.”

The red melted from Blitzwing’s vision, though the rage he felt at failing to escape yet again ebbed only slightly.

“I hate you,” he said simply, leaning back against a tree and folding his arms over his chest.

Bumblebee merely grunted in agreement.

* * *

Bumblebee decided it was best to wait for Blitzwing to recharge first from now on, regardless of how annoying his switching faces were. Letting a Decepticon out of his sight was a mistake he didn’t intend to make again. He didn’t even move behind a tree despite the temptation—no way was Blitzwing getting even a tiny chance to ditch him again.

And alas, the faces did start switching about an hour later into the night. Slow, slow, slow, a bunch of fast ones… slow, slow, slow, more fast. Bumblebee sighed, watching tiny wisps of air materialize around his vents, which would have been invisible had they not caught against the moonlight.

Nighttime was chillier under the cover of trees, Bumblebee supposed.

He turned over so he was looking at Blitzwing, who seemed relatively uncomfortable with his chin dropping toward his chest, sitting in a crumpled but technically upright position. Bumblebee considered waking him up, knowing the triple changer would likely wake up sore and whiny if he recharged like that, but Bumblebee was finding it particularly hard to care about his comfort at all.

And to think he’d actually thanked Blitzwing just earlier today.

_Whirr. Whirr whirr whirr whirr. Whirr._

Bumblebee clunked his helm against the hard ground a few times, trying to quietly knock away some of the frustration, slowly resigning to the fact that it might be weeks before he got a decent night of sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Blitzwing had been correct in one thing, unfortunately—the fuel organics used in their cars was sufficient, but far from efficient. Daily trips to the shed had become necessary just to keep their tanks occupied. The walks had grown silent, nothing but tension tightening the air between the two mechs, and Bumblebee would have at least tried to make conversation had he not still been furious at Blitzwing for last week’s escape attempt.

Which left him sitting on the ground in a small patch of sunlight, sucking down oil hungrily, simply watching Blitzwing do the same. The silence was stifling; Bumblebee’s knee had been bouncing for the past few minutes just to give his racing processor something to focus on.

Eventually he caved to his building curiosities and threw a little rock at Blitzwing. Blitzwing glanced up, looking unintentionally menacing as his singular optic locked on Bumblebee.

“Hey.”

“What do you want?”

Bumblebee shrugged, taking a long pull from his gas can. “You know your faces spin a ton while you sleep, right?”

Blitzwing stared back at him blankly. “You’ve made me acutely aware of this over the last few days, yes,” he said, an edge of irritation sharpening each syllable.

“I was just, uh… what do you dream about?” Bumblebee tried to look casual, chewing on the end of the nozzle. “‘Cause you always kinda spin in a pattern. Slow, then fast for a bit, then slow again. Wash, rinse, repeat.”

Blitzwing kept his optic harshly focused on Bumblebee for an agonizingly long moment before returning his gaze to his gas can, swirling around the liquid inside.

“Nothing.”

Bumblebee raised a brow. “Really?” he pressed. “‘Cause it kinda seems like—”

_Whirr._

“ _Ask me again, and I’ll flatten you into sheet metal and drink your fuel!_ ”

Bumblebee rolled his optics and shut his mouth.

* * *

The air from their vents grew more and more visible as the days dragged on, especially when the nighttime temperatures started to slip lower and lower. It was little issue to Blitzwing, who had two engines’ worth of heat churning in his frame at all times, but Bumblebee had started shivering when evening darkened into nighttime. Blitzwing only noticed because the annoying Autobot refused to give him any space whatsoever, even after he swore up and down that he wouldn’t run away again.

It was an empty promise, and Bumblebee was smart for not trusting it. Blitzwing despised the stubbornness nonetheless.

Blitzwing’s leg was healing, albeit slowly. He still walked with a noticeable limp, but well enough that their trips were relatively unhindered by his lack of speed. Wherever they were, apparently it wasn’t a place humans frequented during the colder weather, which Blitzwing took some solace in. Some, but not much. He was still stuck with an Autobot that got so frequently bored that he had one-sided conversations with trees, but Blitzwing found it increasingly easy to zone out so long as Bumblebee wasn’t focusing any attention on him.

Blitzwing tried to slip away one more time in the middle of a trip to get fuel and had been thwarted quite quickly, earning himself a vicious kick to the wing that had made him shriek in pain. Bumblebee seemed pleased at how sensitive his wings were, and almost constantly threatened to hit them whenever Blitzwing did anything the Autobot didn’t remotely approve of. He was growing weary of this game, of the Autobot, and more than anything, of the boredom.

Spending a week listening to Lugnut rave about Megatron would be better than this.

* * *

“Can you—”

“If you tell me to hurry up one more time, I will remove your helm from your body.”

Bumblebee scoffed and turned his back to Blitzwing, stepping in his old footprints just to ease the monotony of the trip. There was a bite of cold in the air nowadays, and Bumblebee did his best to ignore it by staying on his pedes, running around in circles as much as he could without letting Blitzwing out of view. Stupid fragger had tried to run twice now, and Bumblebee’s trust in him was less than nothing, if that was even possible. 

They reached the shed in record time, and Bumblebee slid down the hill without hesitation, eager to get something in his tanks. They hadn’t felt the need to refuel yesterday, leaving both of them particularly grouchy today, though Bumblebee naturally assumed that Blitzwing was acting like far more of an aft than he was. It must’ve been in his coding to be completely insufferable, Bumblebee assumed.

He squished himself through the doorway and began to gather fuel as usual before pausing and looking around. Something looked… different. There were still gas canisters strewn about, nothing strange about that, but they felt lighter. Whatever humans used this shed constantly refilled the gas, probably assuming that it was simply getting used up quickly, but today, Bumblebee found that many of the canisters were empty. 

And most of the ones that were empty had dentae marks chewed on the nozzles.

“Oh, scrap,” Bumblebee whispered, picking up one of the cans and shaking it nervously. It was, like many others, empty. “Scrap, scrap, scrap.”

“What are you complaining about now?”

Bumblebee ignored the distant voice, rushing around the room and shaking every can he could find. Why were they empty? Maybe a third of them actually contained fuel, but the rest were completely drained save for a few drops left over in the bottoms. Bumblebee groaned quietly and began stuffing the filled canisters into his subspace. “ _Scrap!_ ”

A loud _thud_ sounded from outside, and Bumblebee hated that he immediately knew that it was Blitzwing. The triple changer poked his helm against a window, unable to fit through the door, and glared at him with narrowed optics.

“What is the problem?”

“The cans are all empty,” Bumblebee said, his voice tight. “The humans stopped filling them up.”

“Probably because it is getting cold, and they have no need to be driving around in nature,” Blitzwing said pointedly. “ _Or_ they noticed that all of their fuel was getting stolen because you insist upon gnawing at the cans like a wild animal.”

“S-shut up! It’s the first one, definitely the first one.” Bumblebee crammed his subspace with any fuel he could find, dismayed immediately. “This is all we have now.”

“Fantastic. So now we just need another miracle shed full of oil, and we will be set.”

Bumblebee glared into Blitzwing’s cold smirk, tempted to hurl a canister at his helm.

“This is your fault!” he snapped. “You drink too much fuel!”

Blitzwing rolled his optics, folding his arms. “I doubt that,” he said sharply.

“Yes, it is! You and your two engines, always—”

“Look!” Blitzwing cut Bumblebee off with a hard smack on the shed’s ceiling, ending the argument before it began. “We can fight about this or we can find a place to store what we have before the humans use it up. Shelter might not be a bad idea. Your shivering at night is getting annoying, anyway.”

“I don’t—”

“Yes, you do. Collect what you can and we can start looking for a place to hunker down. The last thing we need is humans following our trail.”

Bumblebee huffed and rechecked all of the fuel canisters, stashing only two more away before creeping out of the shed. He held one of the cans up to Blitzwing, not looking at him as they set off for yet another exploration.

“For the road?”

Blitzwing paused before grunting quietly, taking the canister and sucking quietly on the nozzle. Bumblebee did the same, though much less quietly, ignoring the irritated sigh from Blitzwing. Annoying him was starting to become Bumblebee’s only hobby, after all.

* * *

Blitzwing glanced down at Bumblebee dryly, watching as he folded his arms and stuck out his lower lip.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s tiny! Your fat aft is barely gonna fit in there, let alone anything else.”

“ _You’re_ tiny,” Blitzwing corrected, fighting off a surge of anger as yet another gust of wind made their plating clatter. “It will suffice. We can look for something better in the morning. But it’s getting dark and I’m tired of your pathetic trembling when you get cold.”

“I don’t shiver when I’m cold!”

“You’re shivering right now.”

Bumblebee opened his mouth to protest, but Blitzwing simply stepped forward and started clearing rocks from the entrance of the little cave in a feeble attempt to make it more spacious. It was relatively shallow, but tucked away enough that a pile of gas canisters would be hidden from the view of any passing organics. As much as Bumblebee tried to convince Blitzwing to find humans and ask for help, there were some lows he refused to stoop to. Accepting help from an enemy when they shared a species was painful enough: accepting help from an enemy when said enemy were aliens was inexcusable, especially since the moronic organics would likely arrest him on the spot. Megatron would never pardon him for such idiocy. 

Bumblebee watched with his lip sticking out angrily as Blitzwing swept aside gravel and dust, making the cave at least a little bit more comfortable. He gestured inside, looking expectantly at Bumblebee.

“Well?”

“I don’t wanna be _that_ close to you.”

That did it. Blitzwing let his anger bubble forward, and he stomped angrily at the ground, crushing a rock beneath his pede.

“ _Stop being so stubborn and get in the fragging cave!_ ”

Bumblebee sighed loudly and stomped forward, kicking at a pebble to prove that he was annoyed. Blitzwing growled before letting his anger melt away, replaced by icy amusement. Bumblebee’s childishness was comical, even if incredibly irritating.

“I’m not doing this because I want to,” Bumblebee reminded him as he entered the little cave, pulling a dozen or so gas canisters from his subspace and piling them against the back wall. Blitzwing chuckled a little.

“Of course,” he said with a smirk. Bumblebee rolled his optics and leaned against a wall, pressing himself against it tightly as Blitzwing followed after, squeezing himself into the entrance of the cave. There was just barely enough room for both of them, only a meter or so of dirt separating them when they shimmied as far away from each other as possible. 

Which was, of course, exactly what they did.

Blitzwing picked up another canister of gas and suckled at the nozzle, a little hunched over due to the low height of the ceiling, but glad to at least be out of the wind. Bumblebee grimaced and picked up his own can, chugging it down without a single care for delicacy.

“Don’t drink too much,” he said around a mouthful of oil.

Blitzwing smirked a little. “I’ll try my best.”

* * *

The sound of Blitzwing’s switching faces was amplified a thousand times in such close quarters, and Bumblebee started to seriously worry that he might go insane if they stayed in this cave for much longer.

Wind whistled past the rocks Blitzwing had arranged in front of the cave, the chill slipping inside every once in a while and biting through the surprising warmth that had been growing in their little shelter. Bumblebee figured that most of it was emanating from Blitzwing’s overly complicated, duel-engined frame, and he despised how glad he was to have some sort of heater, even if that heater was a jerk Decepticon.

It wasn’t his fault that he got so cold so easily. Bumblebee wasn’t exactly designed for cold temperatures, with skinny arms and a lithe frame, an engine designed to pump out warm exhaust as fast as possible. He was made for speed, not endurance. Blitzwing would be the same, if he hadn’t been forged with some freak three-mode frame.

Bumblebee glanced over at his slumbering form, watching him switch from blue to red. Had he been forged that way? Was that even possible? Blitzwing was the only triple changer Bumblebee had ever heard of, and certainly the only one with three entirely separate faces. Whatever he was, Bumblebee twitched when he realized he was temporarily grateful for it. Apparently tank engines put off huge amounts of heat.

As another howl of wind blustered outside, carrying endless brown leaves with it, Bumblebee shivered again. Despite the small pile of rocks at the entrance, the cave wasn’t even close to sealed off, allowing little tendrils of cold air to snake their way inside, piercing through the warmth like tiny, icy knives. Bumblebee rubbed his arms and huddled into a tighter ball, but the wind still smacked against his back.

He looked over at Blitzwing, then at the sizeable distance between them. _Ugh_ , he thought to himself. _No. No way._

The wind jabbed at Bumblebee’s back again, and his shivering grew more consistent. 

He peeked upwards. Surely a little, tiny more proximity wouldn’t kill them. Bumblebee could blame it on a slope in the floor or something if Blitzwing said anything about it. He paused to let go of his dignity before shimmying himself a little bit closer to Blitzwing, careful to leave a foot or so of space between them.

Blitzwing’s face switched, and Bumblebee nearly jumped straight out of his armor in panic, afraid he’d been caught. But no, just the normal nightly routine. He’d switch maybe two more times before going rapid-fire.

Bumblebee shut his optics, frustratingly pleased with how much warmer the air felt. Blitzwing’s massive frame was not only warm, but it blocked a good bit of the wind that tried to stab into the cave. Just a few minutes had passed before Bumblebee realized that his shivering had stopped. He exhaled quietly and unfurled the knot he’d tied himself into, relaxing into a much more comfortable position. Thank Primus, he might actually get a decent night of rest tonight.

Blitzwing’s face switched again. Bumblebee barely noticed.


	7. Chapter 7

Blitzwing roused from his quiet stasis for a moment to see Bumblebee curled up shockingly close to him, snoozing away with a mildly troubled look on his tiny face. Blitzwing’s reaction was immediate and visceral, and he felt anger and confusion rip through him as he raised a fist to the little Autobot, ready to smack him out of the cave entirely. What right did he have to use Blitzwing as a fragging heater?

Though he paused before his servo made contact. The bug wasn’t shivering anymore, at least, nor was he complaining about being too cold. Blitzwing felt his anger ebb away slowly, and he lowered his fist back down to his side. Logically speaking, there was no reason to be annoyed at Bumblebee for acting upon basic survival instinct. 

Even if that instinct left less than a few inches between their frames.

Blitzwing huffed softly and rolled over. Keeping the proximity between them small would be fine so long as he didn’t have to look directly at the irritating little insect. The only disappointment would be that he wouldn’t get to see the embarrassment on the Autobot’s face when he awoke and saw the predicament he’d put himself into.

* * *

Bumblebee’s cheeks were still aflame when they set off to continue hunting for fuel, and the blush only deepened when he looked up and saw Blitzwing smirking wider than ever.

“I was just cold,” Bumblebee said after ten minutes of aching silence, his vocalizer sputtering far more than he’d care to admit.

Blitzwing raised a brow amusedly. “Of course.”

“I wasn’t—I wasn’t trying to—I wasn’t doing anything _weird!_ ”

“I know.”

“It’s getting really chilly at night, and not all of us are _tanks_ , a-and it’s your fault for picking such a drafty cave to store our stuff in!”

“That’s fair.”

Bumblebee punted a rock at a tree, folding his arms over his chest. “So don’t—don’t be getting any sort of wrong ideas,” he finished.

“I wasn’t.”

Bumblebee nearly blew a fuse. Fragging Blitzwing and his fragging deadpan attitude. How did he _do_ that? Bumblebee’s whole frame felt warm with shame, optics shifting around Blitzwing’s stupid smirk. Bumblebee _knew_ he hadn’t _snuggled up to a Decepticon_ on purpose, and Blitzwing surely knew it too, but that smug expression was making his gears crank and spin so rapidly that he was sure he must be smoking at the joints.

Their pursuit continued in awkward silence for quite some time before Bumblebee pierced the silence again, hoping to chip away at his anger through a good old-fashioned petty argument.

“I think we’re going the wrong way,” he said, stopping in the middle of a step to turn and glare at Blitzwing. Blitzwing looked as dry as ever.

“How?” he asked coldly. “We have no direction to be going. We’re exploring.”

“Yeah—well—I can tell there’s nothing this way,” Bumblebee continued, tapping his pede on the ground rapidly. “We should turn around.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going the wrong way!”

Blitzwing looked far too bewildered to say much of anything for an agonizing ten seconds before his face switched, his stark red grin stretching far too wide.

“Aw, little Hummel,” he cooed, leaning down and getting right up in Bumblebee’s face. “You really _are_ embarrassed, aren’t you?”

“Little _what?_ ” Bumblebee spluttered, smacking both servos on Blitzwing’s faceplates and trying to shove him backwards. “And no! I’m not!”

“Yes, you are!” Blitzwing insisted, leaning aggressively into Bumblebee’s grip, his audial-to-audial grin somehow lengthening even further. “You deny it so hard that you _must_ be! How _cute!_ ”

“Shut up! It was a normal reaction! I wasn’t even awake when I did it!”

“Liar, liar, plates on fire!”

“ _Shut up!_ ”

Blitzwing suddenly gasped and drew back so quickly that Bumblebee had no chance at balancing himself, and he fell face forward into the dirt with a yelp. Blitzwing seemed to pay him no mind, springing from pede to pede with glee.

“What would Optimus Prime say if he knew?” Blitzwing wondered aloud, clasping his servos to his cheeks and pushing the corners of his mouth higher still. “Would he be angry with little Hummel for cuddling with a Decepticon?”

Bumblebee gaped at Blitzwing as he danced back and forth cheerfully, looking maliciously pleased with himself. 

“N-no!” he said, his words catching in his intake as he tried to argue without sounding overly defensive. “He—it wasn’t—we weren’t _cuddling!_ I was cold and you were warm, simple as that! We weren’t even touching!”

“As far as _you_ know!”

“No! I would never _cuddle_ with a—a freak like you!”

Blitzwing stopped his hopping quite abruptly and looked down at Bumblebee, his face spinning back to blue with a _whirr._ Bumblebee braced himself for the sharp retort, his mouth twitching into a small grimace, but the icy words he expected never came. Blitzwing simply looked down at him, expression twisted in a way that was impossible to place. His face spun to red, and again, Bumblebee flinched in preparation for a flurry of insults, and was only given that same expression on a different face. _Whirr_ , and even the oversized red grin on his black face seemed to falter before he switched back to blue, the bitter, blank expression almost too perfectly executed.

“We have fuel to find,” Blitzwing said shortly, limping past Bumblebee with his optics pointed straight forward. “Don’t slow me down.”

Bumblebee had to take a moment to recuperate from such a strange display before chasing after Blitzwing, tagging along at his ankles, optics bright with questions but narrowed with suspicion.

“What are you so mad ab—”

 _Whirr._ “Keep your mouth _shut_ and your pedes _moving_ , or you won’t have legs to walk with for much longer!”

For once, Bumblebee heeded the advice, lowering his helm a little bit as they continued their hunt.

* * *

The silence between the two was as grating as their trip was fruitless. Apparently, random sheds in the middle of a lakefront forest were not a common sight, and Bumblebee found himself getting more and more worried the farther they walked.

That and his curiosity was full near to bursting. Bumblebee wasn’t entirely sure why seeing Blitzwing act even slightly out of character was so fascinating, but he was aching to know why it had happened. Bumblebee didn’t think that he’d said anything particularly insulting, surely nothing worthy of such an odd reaction.

The face switching had been almost exactly like what Bumblebee heard every night: rapid, almost feverish, preceded and followed by complete normalcy. Had Bumblebee awakened Blitzwing’s unknown dream in Blitzwing’s waking state somehow? Unlikely as it seemed, he was absolutely dying to know, and keeping himself from asking was starting to get almost painful.

Bumblebee had just unclamped his jaw to start pestering again when Blitzwing suddenly halted, holding out an arm that Bumblebee promptly smacked directly into. Bumblebee squeaked and took a few steps back, glaring up at Blitzwing.

“What gives?”

“Hush.”

Bumblebee had to stand on the tips of his pedes to see over Blitzwing’s enormous arm, immediately crouching back a little at the sight. A very large, very angry looking bear was staring up at them, all of its hair bristled on end, sharp teeth bared at the two mechs it was likely considering to be aggressors. Bumblebee felt the wiring in Blitzwing’s frame tighten a little.

“What, are you scared of a bear?” Bumblebee whispered condescendingly.

Blitzwing scoffed. “Of course not,” he hissed back. “But I’d rather not deal with it at the moment. Let’s go.”

Blitzwing started to take a step back, and the bear let out a low growl that made Bumblebee’s plating flare instinctively. He grabbed onto Blitzwing’s leg, shaking his helm wildly.

“No, no, you don’t run from black bears,” he said. “‘If it’s brown, lie down, if it’s black, fight back.’”

“What utter nonsense is that?”

“You don’t _run_ from _bears_ , dumb aft! They chase! Don’t you Decepticons know _anything_ about organics?”

“We tend to concern ourselves with things that actually matter,” Blitzwing grumbled. “I think I can outrun a measly animal.”

“Wait—”

Blitzwing ignored Bumblebee and turned sharply on his heel, moving in the opposite direction, and the bear let out a snuffling roar and charged in their direction. Bumblebee’s helm whipped up for only a second to see two tiny bear cubs tucked away in the tree Blitzwing had moved toward before he heard another growl. 

“Blitzbrain, you _moron!_ ”

Bumblebee spun around just as the bear pounced impressively high, clearly aiming for Blitzwing, but Bumblebee leaped in to intercept, tackling the bear mid-air and wrapping his arms around it tightly so they both crashed into the ground. The bear clearly did not approve of this development, and with an angry snarl, it swatted at Bumblebee’s face with extended claws. Bumblebee tried to chuck it aside and puffed himself out to look more intimidating, and the bear seemed to hesitate before bounding forward and sinking its teeth into his leg. 

“Hey—ow! Stupid thing!”

Bumblebee, short as he was by Cybertronian standards, still had a massive amount of height on the enraged bear, so there wasn’t much difficulty in reaching down to smack the bear from his leg. He flared his plating wide, flashing his headlights erratically, trying to be as scary and unnatural as possible, pride swelling through him as the bear seemed to give up relatively quickly. It roared again, and Bumblebee stared pointedly at is as its—or her, Bumblebee supposed—cubs skittered down the tree and ran toward her. All three of them scattered, and Bumblebee grinned, chasing after them for a few steps with his high beams strobing.

“Yeah, that’s right!” he yelled. “Run away, wimp! Ow… frag, she got me good…”

Blitzwing’s face had switched at some point during the debacle, and Bumblebee wasn’t sure if his scarlet grin was stretched audial-to-audial because Bumblebee had just defeated the bear or because he’d gotten bitten hard in the process. Blitzwing bounced over to him, servos clasped together under his chin.

“You fought a bear!” he said, empty optics shimmering.

Bumblebee shrugged, trying not to show that his leg was starting to ooze pretty badly. “Yeah,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Because _you_ don’t know something that _I_ do. Suck on _that_.”

Blitzwing didn’t seem particularly bothered by this, for which Bumblebee was pretty grateful. Arguing was starting to get tiresome. What he was not grateful for, however, was Blitzwing leaning down and scooping Bumblebee from the ground and into his arms. Despite his throbbing leg, Bumblebee began to squirm and kick, alarmed.

“Hey!” he screamed. “What are you doing?! Put me down!”

Blitzwing beamed down at him with those terrifying, jagged dentae. “You’re hurt!” he said with a voice full of sunshine. “No walking on damaged legs! That’s your rule!”

“I never said that!” Bumblebee insisted as Blitzwing began to walk, a little spring in his step. “Let go of me! You’re the one with a bum leg! You’re limping!”

“No, no, no, I’m _skipping!_ See?”

Blitzwing began to skip higher, every step taking them ten feet in the air, and Bumblebee grabbed onto his neck instinctively, digging his digits into Blitzwing’s armor.

“You’re gonna drop me!”

“No!”

“Let me down!”

“No!”

“I can walk just fine! Put me down, Blitzbrain, I’m serious! I just need a little patch job! I don’t need to be _carried!_ I’m not a protoform!”

Bumblebee regretted his struggling the second Blitzwing’s face switched to red with a _whirr_ , and he suddenly found himself inches from a gap-toothed scowl that breathed scalding air onto his frame.

“ _The last thing I need is your pathetic aft slowing us down even more!_ ” Blitzwing roared. “ _Shut up and let me carry you so you don’t break your fragging leg off!_ ”

Bumblebee shrank down and nodded. “Yeah, no problem,” he said meekly.

He was relieved to see Blitzwing’s cold blue face return and allowed himself to be carried in silence. It was better than being screamed at, at least, but they only continued without speaking for a few minutes before Bumblebee started getting twitchy again.

“We still don’t have fuel,” he said quietly, drumming his fingers on his dripping leg. Blitzwing pondered this fact for a moment before shrugging.

“Fuel can wait another day,” he replied calmly. “Injuries take more priority than fuel.”

“I’m leaking fuel right now, Blitzbrain.”

“Exactly why you should go to the cave and fix yourself before you leak any more.”

Bumblebee couldn’t find a sound counterargument and shut his mouth again, frame warm with humiliation. He was a warrior, not a sparkling. Warriors don’t get _carried._ But unfortunately, as always, Blitzwing was right—with their reserves as low as they were, walking on a bad leg was more detrimental than being without fuel.

At this point in their predicament, Bumblebee would rather sacrifice his pride than his life. But only barely.

* * *

Blitzwing spent the walk back to the cave wondering why he hadn’t just crushed Bumblebee’s leg and moved on. It had been the perfect opportunity—the idiotic Autobot had been as self-sacrificing as his piston-headed leader, and he should have paid a price for such stupidity. Any Decepticon would have paid dearly for doing something so foolish.

A fleeting idea in his processor was that he was slightly flattered that Bumblebee had been so dumb on his behalf. Decepticons weren’t exactly the type to look out for each other, and Bumblebee hadn’t even hesitated to throw himself into danger for him. But Blitzwing pushed that thought aside, forcing himself to believe that the Autobot had been acting on his hard-wired instinct. Autobots _always_ hurled themselves in harm's way to protect their teammates.

Teammates?

Blitzwing rejected that thought as well. They were only comrades by association, by force. Not by choice. Blitzwing almost felt himself getting angry for thinking something so idiotic, fleeting as the thought was. He looked down at Bumblebee for a moment, debating the validity of hurling him against a tree, and was surprised to see the Autobot looking up at him.

“What are you so mad about?” Bumblebee asked, looking almost nervous.

Blitzwing blinked a few times, the temporary rage seeping away into cold indifference. He must’ve switched faces without noticing, especially since Bumblebee relaxed a little just a few seconds later.

“Nothing,” Blitzwing said lamely. Bumblebee raised a brow but, thankfully, didn’t push for elaboration.

They made it back to the cave relatively quickly despite Blitzwing’s persistent limp. Both parties seemed grateful when Blitzwing set Bumblebee onto the ground, and the Autobot quickly set to fixing his leg with his stingers. Blitzwing watched patiently, his monocular zooming in on the punctures. They didn’t seem overly deep, but they were plentiful, and Blitzwing hated that he was impressed with Bumblebee for making such quick work of them. He heated the metal around the holes and squished the plating back together with two small fingers, leaving slightly comical ridges across his leg, but it would be sufficient. Self repair would smooth the damage in a matter of days.

“Hey, Blitzbrain?”

Blitzwing was snapped from his inspection when Bumblebee, as usual, pierced what had been a comfortable silence with his nasally little voice. “Yes?” he said, fixing his gaze on a tree outside in a meager attempt to cover the fact that he’d been watching.

If he had noticed, Bumblebee didn’t say anything about it. “Thanks for, uh, not letting me leak everywhere,” he said, prodding at his leg.

Blitzwing, just as he had been first time Bumblebee had thanked him, was incredibly caught off guard. He didn’t know how to handle being thanked, nor did he think he particularly deserved it. Both times he’d done something for Bumblebee, it had been for his own benefit. Why did he deserve gratitude?

“I need your stingers in the event that I need repairs,” Blitzwing said, a little too harshly. “You’re more useful to me alive than dead.”

To Blitzwing’s surprise, Bumblebee chuckled a bit. In fact, he was so irritated at the unexpected reaction that Blitzwing found himself leaning toward Bumblebee with red clouding his vision.

“What are you _laughing_ at, scum?” Blitzwing snapped. 

Bumblebee’s optics shifted up from his bumpy leg, and Blitzwing got even angrier when he saw that the Autobot was smiling a bit.

“You acknowledged my ‘thank you’ this time,” Bumblebee said, looking pleased with himself. “Last time, you just ignored me.”

“What you did was dumb!” Blitzwing yelled, dodging the point Bumblebee was probably trying to make. “Do you have a loose capacitor?!”

“Nope,” Bumblebee said, focusing his attention on his leg once again. “Us Autobots are actually nice, though. So we do nice things. Things like not letting our oversized bodyguards get mauled by bears.”

“I could’ve handled a scrawny little organic! And I’m not your _bodyguard!_ ”

Bumblebee smirked. “Just admit that I’m better than you at Earth stuff!” he said.

“ _Never._ ”

“Then I’m just gonna keep attacking bears until you do.”

Blitzwing huffed and flattened himself against his wall, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, waiting impatiently for his anger to fade. Attempting to go into stasis when he was angry was damn near impossible, and the mere act of trying just infuriated him further. He started to fear that he may be forced to spend the night staring at a wall when Bumblebee started tapping gently at his pede. He looked more tired than he had when Blitzwing last looked at him, leaving Blitzwing wondering just how long he’d been glaring furiously at rocks.

“Can I fragging _help_ you, Autobot?!”

Bumblebee’s optics were bright in the all-encompassing darkness of their cave, and Blitzwing could just barely see the red from his own optics glinting from the yellow frame.

“I have a question,” Bumblebee said.

“Then _out with it_ , puny Autobot.”

“Why were you all sad earlier?”

Blitzwing was so surprised and confused by the question that he felt his anger vanish instantaneously, an odd change from the usual snaking feeling of ice through his circuitry. He hadn’t been _sad_ , had he? He didn’t recall being sad at any point. Sad wasn’t quite in his repertoire of emotions. 

“I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“I said I’d never cuddle with you,” Bumblebee pressed, rotating on his back so his legs were pressed against the wall, looking at Blitzwing upside down. “And you got all… weird. And spinny. What was up with that?”

Blitzwing pressed his lips together, trying not to make any sort of expression. Not that it was difficult under the blanket of nighttime.

“I didn’t get… weird.”

“No, you definitely did.”

Blitzwing had to force himself not to be angry, reminding himself of the stasis nap he so desperately needed. “Why do you care?” he said through grinding dentae. 

He’d never been asked something like this, and he knew he was reacting poorly, weakly. But what was he supposed to say? And more importantly, why did Bumblebee—an _Autobot_ —give a frag about how _he_ felt? No one had ever cared. In fact, everyone he’d known had actively reassured him that they _didn’t_ care. It was idiotic to let his emotions, or what emotions he was capable of displaying, show because of one stupid word, a word that every Decepticon knew not to use unless they intended to have Blitzwing red-faced and pummeling them into the floor.

Bumblebee was still staring at him expectantly, the blue glow in the cave dancing as he blinked. “I dunno,” he said, more quietly than Blitzwing was prepared for. “I just didn’t know you were… well, capable. It was a weird display, sure, but… you also sorta kinda maybe do the same thing when you’re recharging. The really fast facey-switchy thing.” Bumblebee spun a digit in a circle to demonstrate. “I was just thinking, maybe you have bad dreams or something, and when I have bad dreams, I usually tell them to Bulkhead, and then they don’t happen again. So I thought if you had bad dreams, and you told me, you wouldn’t have bad dreams anymore.”

Bumblebee paused, optics shifting around, almost as if he was hiding something. 

“You know… so your stupid whirring noise stops bugging me so much.”

Blitzwing studied Bumblebee’s face for a moment before letting his gaze wander aimlessly, shifting around the cave, his own frame, anything but Bumblebee. He could see the air puffing out of his vents, the warmth crystallizing in the cold air around them, skid marks on the floor from where Bumblebee had panicked in the morning and nearly driven himself straight into the wall. He couldn’t tell if Bumblebee was actually interested in hearing why he’d reacted the way he did, and the strange urge to tell him only made Blitzwing shut down harder. 

Teammates by association only. Remember that.

“It’s nothing,” he said softly. “Be quiet and recharge.”

He paused a little, aware of the fact that Bumblebee’s optics were still trained on him. “I don’t want to hear your complain about being tired in the morning,” he said more firmly.

Bumblebee kept staring at him for a few more moments before shutting his optics and curling up into his usual little ball against the rough wall. Warm air chugged out of his vents every so often, making the space around him hazy for a few seconds at a time, and it didn’t take long for him to start shivering. Blitzwing sighed and reached out, edging him a little closer, smirking amusedly as Bumblebee’s optics flashed open once again.

“What are you—”

“Are we still having this argument? You’re cold, I’m warm. Shut up and recharge.”

Bumblebee squirmed around in a silent protest before giving in to his more fundamental urges, scooting himself just close enough to Blitzwing that he would be warm, but not so close that they would be in any danger of touching.

“Thanks.” Bumblebee’s voice was ridiculously small.

Blitzwing grunted in quiet acknowledgment.


	8. Chapter 8

_Crack._

Blitzwing’s optics popped open as a bolt of lightning split the sky in two. He’d always been a light sleeper, though a flash of lightning as brilliant as that was sure to snap anyone from stasis. He looked around the cave for a few moments, trying to gauge the time of day—his internal clock was as fried as his signal dampener, and he wasn’t sure if the looming darkness was from the grips of nighttime or from the heavy black clouds hanging low in the sky.

He couldn’t detect much sunlight nor much warmth, so he assumed it must be incredibly early in the morning, perhaps one or two hours after midnight. Blitzwing’s legs were drenched, spattered with icy rainwater, the trees swaying in the direction of the cave and spitting freezing droplets from their branches and into the shelter. A small shudder ran up his spinal strut: the cold itself was tolerable, but paired with rain and wind like this, there was little hope of staying warm. 

Bumblebee had shifted in his sleep and was rolled into a little ball next to one of Blitzwing’s thighs, his frame collecting a decent amount of the rain that was pouring into their shelter. The overhang was only slightly sufficient as a gutter, and large streams of water kept pouring onto both of them. 

Bumblebee trembled and shimmied millimeters closer to Blitzwing any time nature gifted him with a drizzle of icy water. Blitzwing watched him for a while, a smirk on his face, though it felt less malicious than he was used to. The Autobot obviously wasn’t used to spending time outside, with no barrier between himself and the elements. This was an understandable time to be bothered by the cold.

Not that Blitzwing was much different. He thought fondly of his quarters on the Nemesis, the warmth berth he spent every evening taking for granted. He’d been gone long enough now that Megatron had surely repurposed the room, never one to let a resource go to waste.

Blitzwing sighed to himself. How disposable was he in the mind of Megatron? It had been at least a month now since he’d gone MIA. Had there ever been a search party? Lugnut had never given up on finding Megatron even after his fifty stellar cycles at large, but Blitzwing doubted the brute had much room left in his tiny processor to pay mind to anyone _but_ Megatron.

Blitzwing cast his gaze down to Bumblebee as another shard of lightning cracked the sky in half. The Autobots were surely still looking for Bumblebee, he supposed. They spent far too much of their time worrying about the mechs in their ranks, making sure that everyone was online and doing well. Even after all this time, they were surely still looking feverishly for their scout.

Was he jealous of such idiocy? It wasn’t logical to spend so much time, so much effort, so many resources on one single mech, no matter who they were. Bumblebee’s ridiculous cockiness and desperation to prove himself despite his… lacking stature were surely more deleterious than beneficial to the already-weak Autobot forces. But Blitzwing still felt a pang of a strange emotion deep in his processor, something he couldn’t quite place.

The sky rumbled and groaned. Blitzwing counted the nanokliks before a jolt of lightning lit up the Autobot’s golden frame once again. Six. The epicenter of the storm must be just over a mile away.

Bumblebee wedged himself closer to Blitzwing, his dignity absent while in stasis. He was quite tightly pressed against Blitzwing now, despite how vehemently he would surely deny such a fact later. The rain was falling almost completely sideways, steered by the moaning wind, inconveniently directing itself into their shelter. Blitzwing absently tried putting a servo over Bumblebee to block some of the downpour, unsure of why he cared to do so. Regardless, apparently it wasn’t quite enough to protect more than his little helm.

Taking care not to wake the sleeping Autobot—he tended to arise quite violently when prodded mid-stasis—Blitzwing rotated himself around so his back was facing the mouth of the cave, soaking yet another part of his frame in mere instants. The rainwater was awfully cold, especially against his sensitive wings, but it was at least tolerable.

He angled one of his wings a little bit and leaned forward, creating a relatively decent shield between the shivering Autobot and the storm outside. Bumblebee made an irritated whining sound in his sleep and wiggled back against Blitzwing’s leg, squashing his faceplates against the warm, albeit wet, armor. 

Blitzwing felt his lip twitch a little as Bumblebee slowly stopped trembling, though his tiny fingers continued quivering even as his frame relaxed. Blitzwing watched them curiously, zooming in with his monocular. It wasn’t the kind of quivering that would be consistent with feeling cold—this was more of a tic, a spasm of sorts. The digits extended when they moved, as if Bumblebee was reaching for something.

He couldn’t help himself. Blitzwing felt a grin stretch his faceplates wide, a glow of red slicing through the darkness. Bumblebee’s shuttered optic quirked a little, as if annoyed. But Blitzwing ignored him, sticking a digit in front of Bumblebee’s and snickering quietly to himself when the Autobot held on. Tentatively at first, the tiny yellow fingers dancing away upon first contact, but he eventually closed his fingers around Blitzwing’s, pulling the whole servo to a shockingly cold section of his back just below his shoulder joint.

Blitzwing’s smile diminished into curiosity, though he didn’t pull away. Bumblebee was an automobile, not a tank: it was natural for him to have a much lighter and less durable frame, irritating as it may be. And it caused Blitzwing no harm to keep him warm. If anything, it was beneficial. Bumblebee tended to be grouchy when he hadn’t rested well.

Bumblebee released Blitzwing’s digit, his slumbering form satisfied with the makeshift blanket, and he curled his servos under his helm. 

Despite the discomfort it brought, Blitzwing tried not to focus on the icy rain splattering across his back. It was almost nice, to do something stupid and self-sacrificing like the Autobot had done for him earlier in the day. Foolish, surely, as he had been far warmer just minutes ago without water dripping into the seams of his armor. But there was a certain sense of confirmation that came alongside an act of kindness.

Blitzwing chuckled quietly to himself. Megatron had been wrong. 

How refreshing.

* * *

Bumblebee nearly drove up the wall out of sheer panic when he awoke. Blitzwing’s servo was terribly close to his neck, and he feared for an agonizing nanoklik that he was getting throttled to death in his sleep. His frame tensed, plating shifted, tires swelled (the ones that didn’t have slashes in them, at least).

But upon closer analysis, it appeared that Blitzwing was in stasis. Optic shut, his weird monocular dimmed. His back was facing the entrance of the cave, one wing tilted slightly farther out than usual, the tip resting on the ground just shy of Bumblebee’s pedes.

Bumblebee blinked a few times in surprise as he looked past Blitzwing’s immense frame. It was raining outside. Not particularly hard, more of a drizzle than anything, but Bumblebee could see pellets of water dripping from Blitzwing’s back, sliding down his waist and pooling onto the ground below.

Bumblebee’s processor reeled for a few moments. Blitzwing had definitely been facing the other way when they’d slipped into stasis, he was sure of it. Had he turned himself around to keep Bumblebee dry? Why? That didn’t seem particularly in character for him. Surely he was making himself _more_ cold by doing something like that, exposing his entire back to the rain rather than what normally jutted out simply due to size constraints. But Bumblebee was plenty warm, with a servo on his shoulder and a leg against his faceplates.

Maybe this had been a ploy to embarrass Bumblebee again, though this certainly couldn’t count as _cuddling._ Bumblebee had seen cuddling before, and this wasn’t even within the realm of possibility. But whatever this was, it wasn’t avoiding each other either.

Bumblebee tried not to bother with definition. Blitzwing had probably gotten annoyed with his shivering again and was doing his best to stop it. Maybe he was a light sleeper, and Bumblebee had been keeping him awake.

Regardless, he was warm, and he hadn’t felt truly warm since the chilly teeth of autumn had started gnawing at his joints. He could push his ego aside for a few more hours for the sake of warmth.

* * *

“Incoming, bug.”

Bumblebee stuck an arm out instinctively, a slender tree trunk dropping heavily into his servo without him even having to raise an optic from the growing pile of split wood sitting in front of him. Though he did look up to glare at Blitzwing as the triple changer moved away from a gaping hole in the ground and toward a different tree.

“You could give me more than two seconds of warning, you know,” Bumblebee called.

Blitzwing shrugged and knelt down to start digging at the roots of the new tree. “You caught it, didn’t you?” he said with a little smirk.

Bumblebee rolled his optics and lifted the ends of the tree trunk in his servos, pressing a pede to its center and snapping it in half. “Yeah, but I almost didn’t, and then we’d have another injury to deal with,” he grumbled.

“Complain, complain. Incoming.”

“Hey!” Bumblebee dropped the trunk he was holding to make room for another, staggering and nearly toppling over under its very significant weight. “This is too big!”

Blitzwing made a sound that may have been a chuckle, but it was too brief to tell. “Or perhaps you are just too small,” he said snidely.

“Am not!”

“Then don’t complain about things being too big.”

Bumblebee huffed and tossed the trunk down, returning to his attempts to make logs out of the deracinated trees. Blitzwing was strong enough to tear them straight out of the ground, leaving Bumblebee with the task of splintering them into something that could suffice as firewood. Neither was sure how long they’d been out here—certainly days, perhaps weeks. The only indicator of passing time was the rise and fall of the cloud-smothered sun and the steadily decreasing temperature of the air. It had been Blitzwing’s idea to start making fires at nighttime, most likely due to Bumblebee’s quite constant shivering, but Blitzwing had recently been refraining from commenting on it. The reason for why eluded Bumblebee, but he knew better than to ask.

No sense in kicking down the dam holding back a flood.

Even worse, their fuel supply was running low yet again—between the chilly air that forced their engines to hum constantly and the fact that their most recent surplus of fuel had come from the back of some poor schmuck’s pickup, their rations had been incredibly small. Bumblebee longed to see his tank capacity rise above 60%, but hanging around the mid-forties was much more common these days.

 _It’s something, at least_ , Bumblebee thought bitterly for the millionth time, slamming a pede down on another length of wood and splitting it in two.

He heard the scuffling sound of Blitzwing digging at the roots of another tree and sighed, turning to see a jagged-toothed grin get splattered with dirt as Blitzwing pawed at the ground. It was a struggle not to laugh—the sight reminded Bumblebee a lot of those weird things Sari called “dogs.” 

“I think we’ve got enough, Blitzbrain,” Bumblebee said, once again fighting back a giggle as Blitzwing frowned in his direction with his overly long glossa hanging out disappointedly.

“But I want lots and lots,” he said, dismayed. “A big pile that we can use as pillows!”

“I’m not using logs as pillows.”

“Oh, but you’ll use me as a pillow. Picky, picky, picky little Autobot!”

“Yeah, well, you’re warm! Logs aren’t _warm!_ ”

“When they’re on fire, they are!”

Bumblebee raised a brow. “You’d use a burning log as a pillow?”

Blitzwing’s grin stretched. “Why not?”

Bumblebee chuckled and snapped off another small piece from the trunk he was working on. “That’s how you get burned, dummy. I can’t fix burns,” he said. He twisted his digits around for a bit before meeting Blitzwing’s gaze. “And I was sorta thinking maybe we should… not get too comfortable, you know? We don’t really have any fuel, and I think we’ve picked the area pretty dry. And Prime will kill me if he finds out we robbed that guy.”

 _Whirr._ Blitzwing’s cold stare was back, and he pushed himself from all fours and into a sitting position. “Are you proposing that we start moving?” he asked.

Bumblebee was a little surprised that Blitzwing’s voice didn’t hold much judgement—instead, the Decepticon sounded just shy of impressed. Bumblebee shrugged and tossed a log into the small pile outside of their cave.

“Well, maybe,” he said uncertainly, unsure of what to make of Blitzwing’s tone. “We could try, at least. Maybe look for, you know, civilization. A gas station. Pretty much anything.”

“I’ve told you that humans won’t take well to my presence,” Blitzwing said with a sigh, scooting over to Bumblebee and helping to break the trees into manageable chunks.

“Yeah, but we can avoid humans, then,” Bumblebee said, slightly miffed at how much quicker Blitzwing was at making logs than he was. “The lake might be frozen by now—we can try crossing over it and getting back to Detroit. I can find my way around the city, not the fragging woods.”

“It’s not nearly cold enough for the lake to be frozen,” Blitzwing pointed out, sounding uncertain. “We’d have to go around.”

“And there’s probably tons of forest around the whole lake,” Bumblebee said, trying to encourage Blitzwing a bit.

Blitzwing looked oddly conflicted for some time, breaking logs for a while before nodding. “I suppose it’s become somewhat of a necessity,” he said quietly. Bumblebee exhaled in quiet relief—blue-faced Blitzwing was the only one that seemed to have a decently logical processor, and he’d been worried that red-faced Blitzwing would yell at him for the suggestion.

“Yeah,” Bumblebee said lamely as the silence dragged on for a bit too long.

The corners of Blitzwing’s lips twitched for a moment, and Bumblebee wondered vaguely why he’d even been watching so closely in the first place. “I was actually considering the same thing,” Blitzwing said. “But the risks are incredibly hard to calculate, so I’ve been rather unsure.”

Bumblebee snickered. “I didn’t even calculate risks,” he admitted. “I’m just kinda… you know.”

“Hanging around 45% capacity, are you?”

“...Yeah.”

“The fuel situation is borderline dire,” Blitzwing agreed calmly. “We only have about four canisters left.”

Bumblebee blinked. “That bad?”

“Yes.”

“Yikes,” Bumblebee muttered. “Only downside is that we just now got a good stockpile of wood, thank to you uprooting half the forest.”

He winced a little at the whirr, fully expecting the shouting that followed. “You were the one asking for ‘as much wood as we can get!’” Blitzwing snapped, visor practically shooting sparks. “This is your fault!”

Bumblebee smirked a little and shrugged. “Well, we could at least make our last night in your slaggy cave decent,” he said brightly. “Let’s have a bonfire or something. Might as well, right?”

 _Whirr._ “Oooh, yes! Bonfire!” Blitzwing cheered, standing up and doing a weird wiggly move that only partially resembled a dance. “Let’s do that! I can show you how to make shadow puppets! Do we have marshmallows?!”

Bumblebee once again had to fight back the urge to laugh. “No, we don’t,” he said. “They’re bad for you, anyway. Sari once ate a whole bag and was sick for a whole afternoon.”

Blitzwing continued his wiggling even with a disappointed expression, and Bumblebee looked down so the Decepticon wouldn’t see him grinning. He was willing to admit that surviving alongside Blitzwing was starting to at least become tolerable. But he’d rather go offline than openly admit, to Blitzwing or to himself, that it was even a little fun at times. Anyone would smile a little bit at the absolute spectacle Blitzwing was making of himself, frowning and wriggling the way he was.

Right?

* * *

Bumblebee wasn’t sure whether to regret putting Blitzwing in charge of the bonfire-making, as only a few hours after sundown, the entire clearing around them was blazing with light from an inferno that licked at the treetops and spat ash high enough that it was surely staining the clouds. Bumblebee had to sit back at least a few yards from it just to keep overheating warnings from filling his HUD.

He looked up at Blitzwing, whose face was still twisted into a jagged, proud grin as he watched dead leaves singe from overhanging branches. “It’s a bit big,” Bumblebee noted.

“Big and beautiful, like an elephant,” Blitzwing cooed, his optics alight with glee.

Bumblebee stared at him for a few moments, trying not to show how bewildered he was. “Y-yeah,” he said. “Sure. Elephants are pretty neat, I guess.”

He held his servos out the warm the digits, smiling pleasantly at the fire. It was surely hot enough to melt them both into puddles, but he couldn’t resist getting a little closer. It felt like ages since he’d been so warm all over, his sensors soaking in every bit they could take in at once. It was almost too hot, but Bumblebee knew that if they started travelling tomorrow, they wouldn’t get another fire like this in a long time. So he’d enjoy it while he could.

“Is the entire log pile in here?” he asked, watching Blitzwing take a seat across from him, face barely visible through the clouds of smoke.

“Most of it, yes!” Blitzwing said happily. “No need to save it, right?”

Bumblebee grinned and turned around so his back could capture some heat as well. “Right,” he agreed. “It’s, uh… only a little bit too big.”

“I like fire,” Blitzwing said, ignoring Bumblebee’s criticism. “Shh. Listen to it.”

Bumblebee turned around and listened for a few moments, quickly growing restless and leaning around the flames to peer at Blitzwing. “Why?”

Blitzwing’s grin practically took up half of his face. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “It just sounds nice.”

Bumblebee raised a brow curiously before falling silent, trying to think of why Blitzwing seemed to enraptured by the sound of a raging fire. But then again, Blitzwing always did have odd taste when it came to… well, anything. Especially when he had on the black and red face like he did now. Bumblebee had once awoken to him chewing contentedly on a rock, and had quickly learned not to ask for explanations when said rock came rocketing toward his helm.

Bumblebee decided that silence may be the best route to take for the moment—he and Blitzwing were sure to start arguing again when they started moving, and a little bit of peace and quiet might be good while he could take it. He stretched out onto the ground for maximum heat absorption and closed his optics with a sigh.

“This is awesome,” he said wistfully, quickly forgetting that he was supposed to be enjoying the quiet. “We should’ve thought of this sooner. Attracts way too much attention, yeah, but it’s so _warm._ ”

Blitzwing merely giggled in response, mimicking Bumblebee’s pose from across the fire and flopping gracelessly onto the ground with his arms spread wide. The fire popped as some logs tumbled over, smouldering into coals that collapsed and sparked onto the ground. It was oddly interesting to watch, especially given the sheer mass of the wood in the pile. There was never a pause in the light show, and Bumblebee found himself silently staring into the logs for quite some time.

Until, out of nowhere, he heard a quiet _whirr._

Bumblebee sat up and leaned over to look at Blitzwing, who was staring fixedly at the fire, his blue expression tense as ever. The flames reflected vividly in his monocular, and Bumblebee took a moment to stare before speaking up.

“What are you switching for?” he asked.

Blitzwing’s optic swiveled up to meet Bumblebee’s and narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Your face switched. Usually you have, you know, a reason for doing that.” Bumblebee cocked his helm a bit. “Do you really not notice it happening at all?”

“Not particularly.”

“Weird. So what’d you switch for?”

Blitzwing’s expression almost imperceptibly changed into something Bumblebee couldn’t recognize, his optic promptly moving back to the fire.

“Am I not allowed to feel emotion without reason?”

Bumblebee was a little taken aback by how harsh Blitzwing sounded, and he quickly shrank back to his side of the fire. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Just asking.”

* * *

Blitzwing waited until Bumblebee had been asleep for a substantial amount of time before lifting him up and tucking him against the back of the cave. Both of their frames were practically seeping heat, and as much as Blitzwing wanted to let the influx of warmth continue, overheating while resting could be incredibly dangerous. Especially for a frame as small as Bumblebee’s.

He stayed up late ensuring that the fire was properly extinguished, occasionally tamping down the hot spots with the tip of his pede when they seemed close to igniting once again. He liked the crackling sound that fire made, such a primal and pure source of power, easily contained and controlled. Organic animals had stopped making sounds long ago as the air stopped accommodating their weak, squishy bodies, and Blitzwing enjoyed being free from outside distraction for a while.

The bonfire took a few hours to calm into a pile of embers, and only then did Blitzwing feel comfortable enough to return to the cave, though stasis eluded him for quite some time. He stared at Bumblebee for a while, thinking about how he’d been acting earlier. Not only had the motormouth kept his trap shut for a record time of nearly fifteen minutes, but he’d stopped flinching whenever Blitzwing switched faces.

Did the sound simply not bother him anymore? Blitzwing despised unanswered questions as much as he hated being unable to provide answers. Why _had_ his face switched? He’d just been watching the fire, busying himself by attempting to copy Bumblebee’s fidgeting. He hadn’t been doing anything that would normally make his face change, and Bumblebee was right—there was always a reason for it, internal or external. Blitzwing himself was rarely aware of it, barely recognizing the change even if his constant train of thought was obvious to everyone else around him.

Blitzwing clenched his jaw and shut his optics. No sense spending precious memory trying to answer the unanswerable. Maybe someday he’d figure it out.


	9. Chapter 9

The unfortunate realization didn’t come for either mech until morning, and Bumblebee spent at least five minutes staring over the rippling water on the lake in silence wondering if Blitzwing was shaming himself for the same thing.

“So, uh,” Bumblebee tried, breaking the silence awkwardly. “Any idea what direction we need to go?”

Blitzwing didn’t answer, thought Bumblebee could hear the quiet buzzing of his monocular zooming in and out. Bumblebee clicked his glossa impatiently a few times before jamming an elbow into Blitzwing’s thigh.

“Yeah, I don’t think you can see across the lake with that,” he said.

“It was worth a shot,” Blitzwing said bitterly.

_Was it really?_ Bumblebee thought, though he kept the words to himself. Picking a fight before they had even started walking didn’t seem like the best idea, and arguing had sort of lost its luster recently. He instead stared at the water that lapped a few yards away, waiting for Blitzwing to say something else. The sky was just as grey as it had been yesterday, if not more so, and Bumblebee blamed the oversized bonfire from the night before. Surely the ash had gotten stuck up there somehow.

“I think we should go that way,” Blitzwing said, derailing Bumblebee’s train of thought. Bumblebee followed his finger to the right of where they were standing and frowned.

“Why that way?”

“It’s north.”

“So?”

“ _So_ , we should go north.”

“Says who?”

Blitzwing, for once, looked a little flustered, shrugging wildly. “I don’t know!” he snapping, sound exasperated. “We don’t know where we are, nor do we have any sort means of locating ourselves. If we keep going one direction, we should end up somewhere useful eventually. A gas station, a town, _something_. And _you_ can ask for directions, because for some reason, these humans actually like you.”

Bumblebee considered this for a moment, deciding that it did make a lot of sense logically. But he had a weird feeling in his tanks that said they should go the other way, so he stuck his finger due south.

“I think we should go that way.”

Blitzwing stared down at him blankly for a few moments. “Why that way?”

“It’s south.”

“So?”

Bumblebee shrugged. “Dunno. Just got a feeling. I’m a scout, I get those. And they’re usually right.”

“And you usually have functioning tracking equipment.”

“Technicalities. Come on.”

“This is moronic.”

“Just come _on._ ”

Bumblebee started marching with the sun to his left, its thin light trying and failing to prod through the clouds. He felt confident about his choice, and while Blitzwing did let out a very exaggerated sigh, Bumblebee was relieved to hear his heavy footfalls plodding along behind him. The triple changer’s limp had settled at what sounded only most uncomfortable, a gentle _thud_ followed quickly by a resounding _thunk_. He managed it without complaint, but Bumblebee still felt the odd urge to turn around and ask.

“You good back there? Still limping?”

Blitzwing’s face swapped to red with a _whirr_ , and he growled quietly with his dentae bared. “ _Obviously_ ,” he snarled.

“We’re gonna be walking for a while, you know,” Bumblebee pressed. “Do you just need a bolt tightened? Something broken?”

“What I _need_ is a real medic, not a bumbling _scout_ ,” Blitzwing snapped. 

Bumblebee shrugged. “I did my best,” he said defensively. “At least _pretend_ that you’re a little grateful.”

_Whirr._ Blitzwing’s grin stretched way too wide, and he cackled a little, his limp picking up as he moved to walk next to Bumblebee.

“Oh, I like pretend!” he said brightly. “Let’s play charades!”

“While we’re walking?”

“Yes! Guess what I am!”

Blitzwing dropped down to his knees and hunched over a bit, obviously trying to make himself look short. Bumblebee snorted.

“Are you me?”

“Yes!” Blitzwing laughed wildly and straightened his back, but kept scooting along on his knees, digging long trenches in the dirt. “Your turn!”

Bumblebee chuckled and stood up as tall as possible, shutting one of his optics and sticking two fingers up at his shoulders to mimic cannons. Blitzwing looked confused until Bumblebee tried his best to flatten his expression into Blitzwing’s characteristic frown, and Blitzwing giggled for a bit, grabbing onto his own cannons and wiggling the barrels happily.

“I know! I know! I know! You’re me, you’re me!”

“Nailed it, Blitzbrain. Your turn.”

* * *

Bumblebee tried once again to push Blitzwing forward, but he was stubbornly standing completely still with his arms in an arc above his helm and a huge grin on his face, glossa lolling out playfully. Bumblebee groaned as audibly as possible, ramming his own helm into Blitzwing’s hip until his processor ached. 

“Come _on!_ Charades is over!”

“Not until you guess!”

Bumblebee made and exasperated sound and smacked his servos on Blitzwing’s thigh. “I already guessed it!” he complained. “You’re a tree!”

Blitzwing’s impossible smile only got wider. “But _which_ tree?”

“Oh, come _on!_ ”

“Guess! It’s the rules!”

Bumblebee plopped down on the ground with a scowl and pointed at a lush evergreen.

“That one.”

“Nope!”

He pointed to a long-bare maple. “That one?”

“Nope!”

“ _Blitzwing!_ ”

“You’re so close! Keep going!”

Bumblebee slumped backwards and stuck a digit out in a random direction. “ _That_ one.”

“Ohh, colder, so much colder!”

“That one?”

“Ice cold!”

“I swear to _Primus_ , Blitzwing! We only have so much daylight, you know!”

“Guess faster! As fast as you can!”

* * *

Blitzwing hobbled along rather irritably, a scowl plastered on his inky black face. Bumblebee had only taken half an hour to find the right tree, what was the big issue? Such a buzzkill. The minibot was marching along in front of him, the treeline thickening as the beach grew narrower. He’d been hoping that they could just follow the shore until they reached civilization, but with the forest constantly jutting out and blocking their path, he wondered if maybe it would be better to pursue south regardless of what stood in their way.

Bumblebee had his helm upside down and was watching Blitzwing closely as he walked, craning his little neck to meet Blitzwing’s gaze. “Whatcha thinking about?” he asked.

Blitzwing raised a brow. “What?”

“Blue.”

Blitzwing shrugged, wondering why the bug seemed so insistent on asking him so many questions about his thoughts and mentally cursing the fact that his emotions were constantly plastered on his face. “Nothing,” he replied calmly.

Bumblebee stumbled over a rock, given that he wasn’t watching where he was going at all, but kept walking with his helm tipped back. “Liar,” he said plainly.

“You do know that most sane mechs can have a train of thought without constantly updating everyone on what it is, correct?”

“As if you know slag about being sane,” Bumblebee said with a snide grin. “Excuse me for being curious.”

“Your curiosity will surely spell your downfall,” Blitzwing said plainly.

Bumblebee lifted his helm up and started walking backwards, glancing over his shoulders for trees on occasion. “It’s just—you’re a triple changer!” he said, his optics lighting up with excitement, as if he’d been dying to mention this very obvious fact for weeks. “Us Autobots, you know, we have, like, two planes. And that’s it! Let alone a plane slash tank! I just—I don’t _wanna_ think it’s cool, but it kinda is!”

Blitzwing spent a few seconds studying Bumblebee’s face, the strange twinkle that had taken over it, and very quickly tried to change the subject. “I would say it’s more important to focus on the fact that you Autobots have no flight types,” he said coolly. “Pathetic, really.”

“We—that’s not our fault! We’re worker class! We never needed to fly!”

“Have you never wanted to?”

Bumblebee paused and shrugged. “I got wheels and I go fast,” he said. “ _You_ can’t do _that_.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Well, I mean, it’d be cool, but I’d rather be a grounded Autobot than a flying Decepticon! We just want peace and stuff, and you guys go around bombing everything, causing this whole revolution—”

“With the intent of giving life to our home planet.”

“It’s a _planet._ It doesn’t _need_ life.” Bumblebee had his arms folded over his chest, his lip sticking out like it did whenever he was pouting. “And you can’t tell me you guys don’t actively make yourselves seem ridiculously evil. I mean, look at Megatron. That fragger is _terrifying._ ”

Blitzwing shrugged nonchalantly, less than willing to discuss Megatron very much. “He is quite intimidating, yes,” Blitzwing agreed. “But it seems better to have a leader with actual power rather than your… Ultra Magnus, is it? I see him as little more than a figurehead.”

“Nuh uh!” Bumblebee’s lip stuck out further. “Ultra Magnus is awesome. And he’s really strong, he’s just… busy, I guess?”

“Another reason Decepticons are better than Autobots,” Blitzwing said snidely. “We at least know what our leader is _doing._ ”

“Yeah, _you_ do! Because you’re super high in the ranks!” Bumblebee’s pede slipped out from underneath him as the ground sloped upwards suddenly, but he managed to keep up his backwards pace. “I’m a dropout, how am _I_ supposed to know what the big guy is up to? I know all the important stuff, like that you Decepticons keep trying to steal the entire _Allspark_ , bombing Cybertron over and over, doing all those crazy experiments, letting your own kind _die_ just because—”

Bumblebee suddenly stopped walking, looking at Blitzwing with surprise. Blitzwing narrowed his optics.

“What?”

“You just—your faces! You did it again! Why do you keep doing that?”

Blitzwing reached up and touched his face gently, surprised and annoyed at how unaware he was of the change. His cheekbone was high and sharp, his monocular spinning and instinctively focusing on all sorts of fauna, but when he thought hard about the last few seconds, he realized he had seen a brief flash of crimson. Which came back quite quickly as his anger, more at himself than at the Autobot, resurfaced violently in a nauseating bubble of heat.

“Stop focusing so much on my fragging faces!” Blitzwing snapped, his servos tightening into fists as he looked around for a tree to punch. “I get it, they change! I _feel_ things! Not all of us are lucky enough to be able to _not show it all the fragging time!_ ”

Bumblebee, optics wide and clearly taken aback by the outburst, nearly slammed back-first into a tree, though he did try to look incredibly casual about it. Blitzwing snickered darkly at him. Goofy little Autobot. 

“Well done, bug,” he said with a rather nasty grin. Bumblebee stuck his glossa out at him, averting his gaze even as the tension in the air began to unravel slightly.

“Shut up.”

Blitzwing forced his vents to slow a little bit, letting his servos slowly unclench, almost laughing at the blatant relief on Bumblebee’s face when the red cleared from his line of sight. The Autobot had certainly calmed a lot since they’d first gotten into this mess, twitching far less frequently, but apparently he still feared a hotheaded Blitzwing. How interesting.

Blitzwing wondered for only a moment whether he was glad that he still intimidated the little mech, but quickly decided that there were more important things to focus on than that. His HUD caught sight of an unfamiliar tree, and his monocular zipped in and out to determine its identity. A birch tree, apparently, with papery white bark and thin trunks. Blitzwing found it quite interesting to look at, and his optics lingered on it for as long as they could before the tree was behind them.

Perhaps this wasn’t the worst planet in the solar system.

* * *

The sun seemed to set much quicker while they walked—Bumblebee credited it to a lack of boredom, though it did feel strange to look up and see the sky growing darker at such a rapid pace. Blitzwing had tried to convince Bumblebee to stop for the night in a secluded grove of trees, but Bumblebee was firm in finding a shelter with some sort of roof. The clouds were just as foreboding as they had been in the morning, and getting caught in the rain once again was not high on Bumblebee’s list of interests.

Nature grew thick and tangled, the hidden sun their only guide, and Bumblebee was quite grateful when they came across the first breath of civilization that they’d seen in weeks: a bridge. A very old, very abandoned bridge, but a bridge nonetheless. He paused and spun around to grin at Blitzwing, who looked down at him with that same flat expression he always wore.

“We must be getting close to something,” Bumblebee said, pointing at the planks by his pedes.

Blitzwing shrugged. “It looks rather close to collapsing,” he said, uncertainty lacing his words.

“Aw, come on, it’s fine,” Bumblebee insisted.

“There’s water underneath.”

“It’s _fine!_ ” Bumblebee took a few steps onto the bridge, and the planks groaned and protested beneath him, but they held. He bounced a bit to prove his point, then took a few more steps across. “It’s not even that high, it’s, like, a hundred feet up. And if this is here, there’s probably a shed or something around. It’d be nice to have a roof, right? Something to block out the wind?”

He jumped a few more times, the wood creaking ominously under his pedes. Blitzwing looked even more unsure.

“I’m quite a bit heavier than you, Bumblebee. Can we not just go around?”

“Around a river? Yeah, I doubt it. Just don’t jump and you’ll be fine!”

Blitzwing’s face spun to black, the red grin incredibly creepy in the settling darkness of the woods, though Bumblebee’s tanks curled in more concern than fear. “But I like jumping,” Blitzwing said.

“No—no, bad idea, Blitzbrain,” Bumblebee said quickly, holding his hands out to try and ward Blitzwing back until that damn grin went away. “No jumping. I said _don’t_ jump, _no_ jumping, the planks definitely won’t hold—hey, no—stop!”

Bumblebee tried to stop Blitzwing as he launched himself forward with a manic cackle, but it was no use. Blitzwing was fully intent on proving he could jump on the bridge, and he did manage one proud leap before the planks gave, exploding into a powdery cloud of splinters. Bumblebee scrambled onto solid ground, a few more boards snapping in half the moment he was out of harm's way. He only catching a glimpse of Blitzwing’s wild crimson smile as he cascaded down toward the water.

There was a brief cackle followed by a _splash_ and a _thud_ so loud that the remnants of the bridge shook and crumbled even further.

“Blitzwing!” Bumblebee leaned over the edge of the ravine, peering down into the darkness. He could see Blitzwing’s dark form in the water, partially surfaced, which meant the water hadn’t been that deep in the first place. Bumblebee mentally cursed himself—why hadn’t he checked that beforehand? They could’ve just climbed down and walked! Nonetheless, Bumblebee quickly leapt into action and dug his palms into the dirt, swinging his pedes down hard into the dirt to make little footholds.

As carefully as he could, silently vowing not making the same mistake twice, Bumblebee climbed down the steep sides of the gully, ensuring that his pedes were secure before moving any lower. It didn’t take long to reach the bottom, and he fumbled in the dark for Blitzwing’s arm, latching onto it and hauling him at least mostly out of the water. He panted and began smacking Blitzwing’s impossibly dark cheek, darker than the nighttime around them, and was surprised to feel a wave of relief wash over him when two crimson, slanted optics opened to meet his. Blitzwing’s grin didn’t take long to return, though it was noticeably more wobbly.

“That wasn’t a good idea,” he wheezed.

“No slag!” Bumblebee snapped. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

Blitzwing’s face spun back to dusty blue, and Bumblebee was so close that he could see tiny letters stream across his monocular, most likely a diagnostic scan. The lettering sputtered a tiny bit but ultimately ended, and Blitzwing shook his helm.

“I landed on my front,” he said, disturbingly calm. “Just a few dents from some rocks. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Bumblebee pressed.

“Yes,” Blitzwing said, his voice sharper now, “though I would advise you don’t tell me to cross rotten bridges next time.”

Bumblebee scowled and crossed his arms. “I _told_ you not to try jumping,” he said, deciding not to vocalize his guilt at not considering climbing down the gully first. “It’s not my fault that you make dumb decisions.”

Blitzwing scoffed, glancing around as he wiped mud from his chest. “Whatever,” he said harshly. “Though I would say that perhaps making decisions in the dark is something we could try to avoid, given that this would have been relatively easy to climb.”

“I… thought of that after the fact,” Bumblebee said sheepishly. “And in my defense, you didn’t think of it either.”

Blitzwing merely rolled his optics and started to push himself upright, wincing almost immediately before lowering himself back down. Bumblebee felt another stab of culpability, but he kept it silent.

“You, uh… you good?”

Blitzwing grimaced. “Self repair will take care of it,” he said, his voice a little wispy. His vents must’ve gotten clogged or overstrained. “We should probably just rest here.”

Bumblebee nodded, hoping to relinquish some of his guilt by agreeing. “That’s fine,” he said, a bit too quickly.

Blitzwing gave him an odd look. “Are you sure you’ll survive without a roof?” he said snidely.

Bumblebee elbowed him, gently enough that it hopefully wouldn’t hurt but hard enough that Blitzwing would at least feel it through his hefty armor. “Shut up,” he said. “The bridge sorta counts.”

Blitzwing glanced up. “I doubt that. There’s a me-sized hole in it.”

Bumblebee shrugged and curled up on the ground with a smirk, pushing around some dirt to form a terrible makeshift pillow. “Well then, Mr. Jumps On Bridges, I guess you’ll have to be my roof if it rains,” he said teasingly.

Blitzwing grunted, and Bumblebee wasn’t sure whether it was a sound of protest or of confirmation.

* * *

Blitzwing’s chest felt like an anvil was resting on it, and he was almost completely sure that he’d gotten mud in the seams of his armor, because his vents were quite short and raspy for a good hour after that fall. His frame was resilient, sure, and there was no way a mere fall could do much more than rattle his armor.

Though that didn’t mean it was exactly _comfortable._

Once his vents finally settled out and became smooth once again, Blitzwing eased himself up so he could lean against the side of the gully, rather comfortable with having his back to a wall. There was no way anything or anyone could sneak up on him now, with all directions in his sights—an outdated fear, given the size of everything in this Primus-forsaken _nature_ , but a logical one nonetheless.

He sorted through his newly collected information about the land for a little while, waiting for Bumblebee to fall asleep so his switching faces didn’t disturb the sensitive little twit. Blitzwing was getting quite tired of being asked about his faces, mostly because he never knew how to explain or answer the question.

And he _hated_ not being able to provide answers. Megatron had reassured him, many times and in many ways, that not giving an answer was downright unacceptable. 

Blitzwing sorted through the plants, wishing he had more data on what they looked like in full bloom: maple trees, oak trees, dozens of types of evergreens, and a whole lot of dead shrubs, grasses, and flowers. Blitzwing wondered what a daffodil looked like when in full bloom, ensuring himself that he’d look at it once he got back to the Nemesis.

_If I ever get back_ , he thought furiously to himself. He should know by now that jumping on bridges was a bad idea, especially rickety wooden ones. What had he been trying to prove, anyway? That he was as light and lithe as a minibot? Or was he merely intent on proving Bumblebee wrong?

There was no answer, and that fact made Blitzwing’s vision smear with scarlet. Bumblebee stirred slightly in his sleep but didn’t wake up.

Bumblebee hadn’t needed to pull him out of five feet of water. He’d been completely fine, just doing a minor reset to ensure that his vents didn’t clog. But the tiny, insignificant little bug had jumped to his rescue once again, and Blitzwing found himself despising it so much that his dentae ground against each other. _He_ was the tough one. Not some pathetic little _Autobot._

He’d thought he’d gotten the massive polarity that was his emotional state under check, but clearly he had some more work to do. And he silently vowed not to make that same mistake twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you'll notice i stopped using phonetic spelling with blitzwing's dialogue here. it got really annoying because i kept getting little squiggly red lines under every damn word he said, so i quit that and changed previous chapters. hope that's okay!
> 
> and a HUGE thank you to everyone reading-- this fic has gotten way more attention than little old me expected, and i am so so grateful and so happy to keep writing more. i hope you continue to enjoy as much as i am!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Babbo526](https://babbo526.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr did some absolutely adorable sketches of this fic [here](https://babbo526.tumblr.com/post/181739530049/guys-got-read-this). Go show the wonderfully talented artist and the piece some love, because I was over the moon when I saw their work.

Blitzwing sent ripples across the surface of the water as he turned around, trying to hide the very obvious fact that his dentae were chattering hard against one another, smirking at Bumblebee as he stood starkly on the riverbed. He punted a pebble into the water, his little scowl deepening.

“No,” the minibot said for the umpteenth time.

“Why not?” Blitzwing felt his grin grow giddy, and he swung his arms across the surface, sending a small wave in Bumblebee’s direction. Bumblebee yelped and scrabbled backwards, looking alarmed. “See? The water is lovely! Take a dive!”

“Blitzbrain, that water’s cold as frag,” Bumblebee said firmly, pressing the tip of a pede to the water and shivering. “I will freeze into a solid chunk. Not all of us have _ice powers_ , you know.”

Blitzwing giggled and took a few steps back toward Bumblebee despite the fact that he had already traversed half the river and could easily just cross it now. “Don’t make me throw you in!” he sang cheerfully.

Bumblebee’s big blue optics widened even further, and he pushed himself farther back on the riverbed, shaking his helm violently. “Don’t you dare,” he said firmly, pointing a finger accusingly at Blitzwing. “Don’t you _dare!_ ”

“ _You_ said we have to cross the river,” Blitzwing said, his steps growing longer. “Don’t you always pester _me_ to hurry up when we walk?”

“Can’t you just carry me across?” Bumblebee begged as Blitzwing got even closer, arms outstretched.

“It’s too deep, silly goose! You’ll still get wet!”

“Carry me on your shoulders, then! Hey— _stop it_ —get off of me!”

Blitzwing had very little trouble in picking up Bumblebee and hurling him into the water, cackling maniacally as a streak of screaming yellow vanished under the frigid water with a titanic _splash_. There was a long pause and a massive stream of bubbles (that Blitzwing could only assume emanated from some underwater shrieking) before Bumblebee surfaced, gasping and shivering all over.

“Y-you a-a- _aft!_ It’s f-f- _freezing!_ ”

“Aw, you just have to get used to it, that’s all!” Blitzwing easily walked back toward Bumblebee, still giggling as he approached the very grouchy little face. It was easy to simply walk across the river, for Blitzwing at least—it didn’t get much deeper than twenty five feet, which only came level with Blitzwing’s shoulders, though it was surely double the height of a minibot. 

Bumblebee dipped down for a moment, only his optics and his little horns breaking the surface. Blitzwing snickered at him.

“See?” he insisted. “You’re used to it! And now you’re fine!

When he resurfaced, Bumblebee’s cheeks were puffed up, and Blitzwing leaned down, cold curiosity seeping through his circuitry.

“Is everything okay?”

Bumblebee grinned for only a moment before spitting a stream of water into Blitzwing’s face. Blitzwing yelped and tried to swipe it away, his frame heating up as his vision blurred with red. “You tricked me, you aft!” he snapped, drawing a fist back in the hopes of burying Bumblebee under a homemade tidal wave.

“ _Wait!_ ” Bumblebee screeched, half-laughing, covering his face as best he could while swimming. “Wait, wait, wait! Calm down! I got you for once, let me have this!”

Blitzwing paused merely to scowl as Bumblebee paddled a little closer, the depth of the water putting them at an even level for the first time since Blitzwing’s leg had initially been damaged. He almost felt his anger bleed away, but then he remembered that he still couldn’t quite walk properly because of Lugnut’s stupid punch, and his annoyance was only refreshed. 

Then Blitzwing felt two small, ice cold servos on his face, and he blinked in surprise. Bumblebee was looking at him inquisitively, both servos lingering for a moment on Blitzwing’s chin, then moving up to his cheeks.

“What the _frag_ are you doing, Autobot?” Blitzwing hissed, his cannons twitching instinctively.

“Just seeing something,” Bumblebee said casually, patting Blitzwing’s forehead. “We kinda came up with three names for you so we could keep you straight in the heat of battle, you know? Icy, Random, and this face is Hothead. And I wanted to see if that was literal.” He frowned a bit. “Bulkhead _swore_ you got warmer when you had this face on, but he’s _so_ wrong. I can’t wait to tell him.”

Blitzwing let out a low growl and pushed Bumblebee away. “ _Hothead?_ ” he said incredulously. “What kind of iron-processor would come up with a name like that?”

Bumblebee looked offended, and Blitzwing sighed, his irritation bleeding away. “ _You_ did, didn’t you?” he said shortly.

“It seemed fitting,” Bumblebee huffed, doing a backstroke toward the other side of the riverbed. “I thought you might be useful for warming my servos, but apparently not. Thanks a ton. Toss me into ice cold water and then don’t even give me a way to warm up. This isn’t fuel efficient, you know.”

Blitzwing rolled his optics and looked down as he walked across the river, his monocular locating some hardier plants and mosses slicking the rocks by his pedes. “So I suppose you must want to call me… ‘Icy,’ was it?”

Bumblebee grinned, reaching a depth where his pedes could touch the ground and beginning to walk, rubbing the cold from his arms. “Nah,” he said, flicking some of the water from his frame as his shoulders breached the surface. “You’re just Blitzwing, the three-faced weirdo.”

Blitzwing huffed quietly. “And you’re Bumblebee, the undersized chatterbox,” he grumbled.

Bumblebee winked and pointed a digit at Blitzwing, thumb in the air, his servo resembling a little gun. “And proud of it, too.”

* * *

The sky was starting to turn a thousand shades of pink and red before words were exchanged between the two of them again, prompted by Blitzwing as he held an arm out in front of Bumblebee. Bumblebee stumbled a bit, only halfway paying attention to where he was going, lost in the long conversation he’d been having with himself deep in his processor. Once back in reality, he looked up at Blitzwing, confused.

“It better not be another bear,” he warned.

“Not a bear,” Blitzwing said, pointing far into the distance. “Look.”

Bumblebee followed Blitzwing’s finger and peered through the impending darkness, raising a brow curiously. “Uh… woods?” he said slowly. “Yeah, I’ve seen some woods recently. Pretty interesting.”

“Not the woods, imbecile. Humans.”

“What?!” Bumblebee looked up at Blitzwing in surprise and found himself chuckling a little almost immediately, covering his mouth. Blitzwing looked down at him and frowned.

“What are you laughing about?”

“You’re zoomed in, like, all the way,” Bumblebee said, pointing to Blitzwing’s glimmering monocular. “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t have zoomable vision.”

Blitzwing sighed, his monocular retracting and spinning as it settled back into place. “Unimportant,” he said gruffly. “The important thing is that I saw human vehicles. Large, white, rather rectangular in shape. Do you have any idea what they may be?”

“Uh… maybe campers, RVs, something like that?” Bumblebee guessed. “Why? What’s the big deal?”

Blitzwing snorted. “You disabled fuel capacity warnings, didn’t you?” he said snidely.

“I—so what?” Bumblebee snapped. “I still check on my capacity! It’s at—oh.”

The constant flags on his HUD had been getting so annoying that Bumblebee disabled them, tired of seeing them flash obnoxiously in his vision every time he tried to move, and he had apparently not thought to glance up at his capacity percentage without them. The number was dangerously low, and Bumblebee realized with a start that he barely had enough fuel to be walking, let alone swimming through freezing rivers. _Hm_ , Bumblebee thought. _Maybe those stupid flags are standard for a reason._

“How low are you?” Blitzwing asked, interrupting Bumblebee’s mental conversation.

Bumblebee frowned. “Uh… 14%?”

“Is that a guess or your answer?”

“Shut up, Mr. Sarcasm. 14%. And I’m gonna take a wild guess that you want to go steal the fuel from those RVs, but I can promise you, that’s a terrible idea.”

Blitzwing started walking once again toward the alleged RVs. “Why’s that?” he asked quietly.

“Because! RVs aren’t just vehicles, humans _live_ in them!” Bumblebee said, jogging to keep up. “They camp in them! We can’t exactly just walk up to them and take the gas like we did from that shed. And I think they’ll hear your huge aft walking toward them, considering you’re almost as tall as most of the trees here!”

Blitzwing shrugged, a quirk of annoyance passing over his faceplates and disappearing, and Bumblebee wondered for a fleeting moment if he was trying to keep from switching faces to preserve fuel. Did that even burn fuel? Or was Blitzwing just better at making fuel-efficient decisions when he was calm?

“Well, perhaps you can find an empty one and take its fuel, then,” Blitzwing said. “It’s nighttime, surely some of the humans are out and about doing… whatever humans do.”

Bumblebee sighed, starting to see the white smudges of campers in the distance. “Shouldn’t we focus on the fact that we’re _obviously_ close to civilization, since there’s humans out here?” he said with a scowl.

“No. Because we are _obviously_ nowhere near _Detroit._ ”

“So?”

“ _So_ , I doubt humans that spend their time in the forest are going to know much of the intensely technological affairs in Detroit,” Blitzwing, his voice getting heavy with irritation.

“That’s discrimination,” Bumblebee argued. “People who camp can like technology, too!”

Blitzwing was starting to sound incredibly impatient. “ _Yes_ , but we don’t know how far from Detroit we are. You Autobots were accepted within the city after initial hesitation, if I recall correctly, and while I’m sure stories of your ‘heroism’ have spread far and wide on this planet, those must also come alongside stories of your continued idiocy and destruction. As well as tales about how us Decepticons are ‘evil,’ most likely with our pictures attached. If the humans do happen to trust you, they won’t trust me. And if I recall, you still require my signal dampener, so thus, you require _me._ ”

Bumblebee paused, fully aware the Blitzwing had a lot of good points. Though he pouted regardless, folding his arms over his chest. “Bitter much? You Cons are the ones who bust up the city half the time,” he snapped. “And I think—”

“Keep your voice down. The humans will hear.”

“ _Fine,_ ” Bumblebee said in a loud whisper. “We won’t ask for directions, okay? We’ll just wander around aimlessly until we somehow end up near enough Detroit for your personal comfort.”

“Wonderful.” Blitzwing smirked, and Bumblebee was immediately certain that he was ignoring the sarcasm dripping from Bumblebee’s words. “The vehicles—”

“RVs.”

“Must you correct me constantly?”

“‘ _Must you correct me constantly?_ ’” Bumblebee said mockingly, giggling a bit at Blitzwing’s choice of syntax. “Must you—talk—stupid?”

It was Bumblebee’s turn to smirk, and Blitzwing merely sighed at him, taking absolutely all of the fun out of it. “Just go,” he said. “Bring back as much as you can.”

Bumblebee grinned, more than ready to show off his stealthiness, rubbing his servos together in anticipation. “You got it, Blitzbrain,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Blitzwing didn’t answer, merely finding a group of trees to sit by as Bumblebee cracked his knuckles and set off toward the campers. The things were pretty hefty, at least compared to him, and they surely had a lot of fuel in them. He grinned and began to slip from tree to tree, watching the campers grow clearer and clearer in his optics. He could hear noises, meaning there were humans around, so he simply picked an RV that didn’t appear to have its lights on and snuck toward it, crossing his fingers for some personal good luck.

* * *

Blitzwing lost sight of Bumblebee among all the boxy human machines for quite some time, the miniscule sounds of human movement meeting his audials every so often, and he found himself dearly hoping for some good luck. His tank was at 7%, and he’d been unable to clear the warning from his HUD for quite a while now: `Danger. Tank percentage approaching critical shutdown mode.`

At least he wasn’t leaking this time.

The sun was halfway below the horizon when Blitzwing heard a set of unfamiliar sounds, and he looked up and zoomed in to see Bumblebee running at full speed with a crazed grin on his face, holding a large cylinder of some sort in his arms. A small bundle of hairy-faced humans, maybe two or three, were charging up behind him and yelling angrily, though their speed was obviously no match against legs three times as long as theirs. 

Blitzwing stood up when he heard Bumblebee join in on the shouting, though his tone was almost giddy. 

“Go, go, go, _go, go!_ ” 

He ran by in a flash, and the fleshlings skidded to a halt with terrified expressions when they looked up at Blitzwing’s helm as it scraped against branches in his haste to move. He grimaced a bit—was his damn leg ever going to heal?—and took off at Bumblebee, managing to almost keep pace even with one lame limb.

“What did you _do_ , Bumblebee?” he snapped as he chased after the speedy little minibot.

Bumblebee turned his helm for a moment, flashing a grin. “So—whew—most of the campers were empty except for human food, right?” he said, sounding quite breathless. “These dudes must’ve been on some road trip, because they had a whole bunch of fifty five gallon drums in their trailer! I only managed to snag this one, but still! And we gotta go, and we gotta go _fast._ ”

“Why?”

“You were right about a lot of these humans not knowing about us! They sorta pulled a gun on me, so I had to split.”

“You can’t handle a human gunshot?”

“Not without leaking at least a little bit, and I’d rather not bleed out while trying to get fuel! The irony would be too awful. Just shut up and run!”

Blitzwing did just that, though not without a healthy dose of exasperation, doing his best to chase after Bumblebee until the sounds of the humans faded into the distance. Bumblebee was still whooping with excitement, practically skipping as he ran, and Blitzwing found himself almost cracking a smile.

“That’s quite a reaction for a bit of fuel,” he said, slowing to a walk, trying not to grab onto his leg and make the fresh pains overly obvious.

Bumblebee merely laughed, turning around and walking backwards. “Fifty five gallons?” he said happily. “This’ll refill both of us to a hundred percent! Slag yeah, I’m reacting! I’m _hungry!_ ”

He plopped down onto the ground and lifted the barrel up like an oversized cup, taking a long pull out of the hole in the top and sighing in overly dramatic relief. “Oh, man, that’s the _good_ stuff,” he said, his tone bordering on ecstatic. “That other stuff must’ve been low-quality, because holy frag, I forgot how good a nice can of fuel can taste. I think this is premium. No wonder those humans were mad.”

He lifted the barrel toward Blitzwing, who tried to conceal just how much he agreed as he took a sip. The fuel flooded his nearly-depleted tanks like liquid gold, and it took all of his self control not to stick his glossa into it and suck it all out at once. He passed it back to Bumblebee, who took a very long drink before handing it back.

“Go ahead and finish it,” he said with a small grin. “I bet you’re running pretty empty.”

Blitzwing raised a brow at him. “Are you sure?” he said uncertainly.

“Absolutely! I’m pretty much full anyway. We should be set for another couple of days, then we can rob someone else. Man, Boss bot is gonna _kill_ me for stealing when I get back, but oh well. Gotta do what you gotta do, right?”

Blitzwing stared at Bumblebee for a little while longer before nodding, draining the barrel in just a few needy gulps. His capacity spiked, warnings clearing from his HUD one by one until it was blissfully cleared. He made sure to clear out every last drop before crushing the barrel and tossing it aside with a small smile. Bumblebee matched it, though his grin was much wider.

“Pretty great what a full tank of good fuel can do, huh?” he said brightly.

“Mhm.” Blitzwing shut his optics, leaning back against a tree, more than happy to rest and let the fuel settle for a while. “Thank you.”

He was met with silence, which generally only spelled disaster when it came to Bumblebee, so he popped his optics back open and looked down. Bumblebee wasn’t doing anything stupid, surprisingly, merely looking up at Blitzwing with a very peculiar expression.

“What are you looking at?”

Bumblebee shook his helm quickly. “Nothing,” he said. “You’re just… you’re welcome.”

Blitzwing grunted and shuttered his optics once again. “The wind isn’t too bad, so we should be fine without shelter for the night,” he said. “And I’d rather not waste good fuel running around in the dark.”

Bumblebee made a little sound of agreement, and Blitzwing listened as he shuffled around, most likely trying to make himself more comfortable. There were a few quiet scraping sounds, a very long pause, and then Blitzwing felt a warm frame scoot against his leg. He opened an optic halfway, and Bumblebee looked up in alarm and shimmied away.

“I was just—”

“How many excuses are you going to come up with?” Blitzwing asked wryly. “Just get comfortable and go to sleep. I won’t make fun of you.”

The two held each other’s gazes for a little bit, almost as if to stare each other down, seeing who would cave first. Blitzwing gave in after a few long moments, shutting his optic fully once again, which seemed to satisfy Bumblebee given that the heat of his frame reappeared against Blitzwing’s leg just seconds later. Blitzwing chuckled.

“You are aware that I can still feel you even if I can’t see you, correct?”

“Shut up. It’s not like I could recharge with you staring at me.”

Blitzwing felt his grin widen, but he hadn’t even gotten a word out before Bumblebee smacked his thigh gently.

“That was not an invitation.”

Blitzwing huffed, his smile shrinking into a normal-sized frown. “Am I really getting that predictable?” he asked.

“Like a moth to a flame, Blitzbrain. The whirring helps.”

“Hush.”

“You first.”

“Must you always get the last word in?”

“Yes.”

Blitzwing sighed. “Good night, Bumblebee.”

“... Night, Blitzbrain.”

* * *

Bumblebee stayed awake longer than usual that night, waiting for Blitzwing to fall asleep. He’d had an idea in mind for a few nights now, a little personal experiment that he’d been too nervous to attempt, but that “thank you” gave him the courage to finally test it out. Maybe the two of them were finally getting along decently enough that Blitzwing wouldn’t rip his helm off for giving it a shot.

Blitzwing was predictable, though at the same time, he was completely unpredictable. Bumblebee never had any clue what he was thinking about, what he was feeling, why he was feeling it. Only the aftereffects of whatever was going on in his processor.

Though one thing about him was certain—as soon as recharge overtook Blitzwing, his faces would start shifting. One by one, then all at once. Every hour of every night, and while Bumblebee found the sound driving him less and less insane with annoyance, he was finding himself more and more curious.

So he waited.

He waited for the first few slow _whirr_ s to slip by, and when Blitzwing hit his first collection of rapid-fire spinning, Bumblebee tapped insistently on his leg, trying to wake him up.

“Blitzwing! Hey, Blitzbrain, wake up! ...Blitzwing?”

Nothing. Blitzwing stayed deep in stasis, and about ten minutes later, his face switched from jet black to fiery red.

Bumblebee huffed and waited impatiently for his next chance, and when it finally came quite some time later, Bumblebee drew a stinger and pressed the tip to Blitzwing’s leg. 

With a spark of electricity, Blitzwing’s frame jolted, his faces stopping mid-spin and pausing on blue for just long enough for Bumblebee to discern one expression that caught him by massive surprise. Blitzwing’s scarlet optic was wide, faceplates tight, his lips slightly parted and downturned, and he stared straight forward into the darkness before looking down at a very confused Bumblebee.

Bumblebee opened his mouth. “W—”

He didn’t have a chance to ask. Almost immediately, Blitzwing’s face spun to red, and he grabbed onto Bumblebee’s servos and tugged him into the air. “What the _frag_ are you stinging me for, bug?” he roared.

Bumblebee kept staring at Blitzwing for a few long seconds before shaking his helm rapidly. “Nothing!” he insisted. “I—I think I was dreaming! It was an accident!”

“Like _slag_ it was!” Blitzwing shouted, more enraged than Bumblebee had seen him in quite some time. “Tell me the _truth_ , you moronic excuse for a mech!”

“I was just—you were talking in your sleep!” Bumblebee tried. “And it was really annoying! S-so I woke you up! Put me down, will ya? And stop screaming, you’re gonna wake up the whole fragging forest!”

Blitzwing snarled, steam practically radiating from his audials before he dropped Bumblebee roughly next to his thigh. His visor abruptly flickered and went dark.

“Don’t wake me up again,” he snapped. “ _Ever._ ”

“Y-yeah,” Bumblebee said quickly, scrambling into his usual little ball. “Got it. No wakey wakey. Ever.”

Blitzwing huffed and folded his arms tightly over his chest, and Bumblebee snapped his optics shut, the image of a clearly scared Blitzwing seared into the back of his lids. So Blitzwing’s faces spun like that when he was afraid? Or maybe the expression had been confusion? Maybe both? Bumblebee didn’t know, nor did he know whether his curiosity had increased or decreased.

What could a mech like Blitzwing possibly be afraid of?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just started classes again (yay, college!) so please bear with me if my updates are later than usual. i try to update every wednesday, but i might have to be late or skip a week here and there if i have too much work to do. i hope that's okay!

Bumblebee tapped a pede impatiently on the ground, watching the gentle tremble of Blitzwing’s wings as he stared up into a tree, his fingers shifting as if mimicking how to grab a small object. Bumblebee raised a brow at him.

“It’s been five minutes, Blitzbrain, can you just—”

“Shhh.”

Bumblebee huffed and plopped down on the ground, crossing his arms irritably. He had learned ages ago that there was no predicting what Blitzwing would do when he had that huge red grin plastered on his face, and there was very little that could deter him from doing whatever chaotic thing he was in the mood for.

Which was, right now, catching a squirrel.

Blitzwing’s left wing twitched a few times, then his right, and without any warning whatsoever, he launched himself forward and slammed his helm against the tree. The bark splintered, wood groaning against the sudden pressure, and a few very panicked squirrels chittered and skedaddled into another tree nearby. Blitzwing cackled, looking pleased when he turned around to face Bumblebee once again.

“I got them!”

Bumblebee couldn’t help himself—he laughed, and he laughed hard, clutching his stomach. “No, you didn’t!” he giggled, holding onto his stomach. “They totally ran away! You didn’t do anything!”

To Bumblebee’s surprise, Blitzwing’s face spun to blue with a _whirr._ “Who said I was aiming to catch them?” he said plainly.

Bumblebee just laughed harder, nearly falling over in a fit. “You idiot!” he wheezed. “What was the point of that, then?”

Blitzwing looked offended, his face spinning back to black, his grin stretching wide. “Who needs a point?” he said gleefully. “It was fun!”

“Whatever,” Bumblebee said, managing to stagger back to his feet, letting the last of his giggles slide from his throat. “Can we keep going now?”

_Whirr._ “Of course,” Blitzwing said calmly, picking up his usual limping pace, monocular zipping around and zooming in on anything it could find. He rubbed his helm a little bit, looking irritated. “That actually hurt.”

“Yeah, you ran into a fragging tree. Moron.”

“I find it hard to contain my impulses.”

Bumblebee looked up at Blitzwing as they walked, a little surprised. They talked about many things, mostly to break the boredom than anything, but they rarely talked about themselves. “Is that right?” Bumblebee said, pressing as subtly as possible for a little more information.

Blitzwing shrugged. “I thought it would be obvious,” he said. “If I get an idea, it pesters me. Acting on my urges gets rid of the feeling.”

“You know you can just… ignore those thoughts, right?” Bumblebee said. “You don’t _have_ to headbutt trees to scare squirrels. Everyone gets dumb ideas, but we don’t _have_ to actually _do_ that stuff we think about.”

Blitzwing chuckled dryly, his monocular spinning and cycling in Bumblebee’s direction. “Lucky you,” he said cryptically.

Bumblebee stopped walking for a moment. “What do you mean?” 

“Come on, bug. We have much ground to cross.”

Bumblebee huffed but continued walking, keeping his posture as grumpy as possible in hopes that Blitzwing would notice and spill the beans. After ten minutes of no luck, he sighed and straightened out a bit. He was getting closer to answers, at least.

* * *

“Bumblebee?”

“Whaddup, buttercup?”

“My leg hurts. Can we stop for a moment?”

Bumblebee turned around, not even noticing that Blitzwing was lagging behind, his limp deeper than it had been earlier in the morning. He rushed back and pointed at the ground, a little pang of worry zipping through his circuitry.

“Sit down, I’ll look at it. There’s a big old bolt in there, I saw it last time, it might be coming loose with all this walking.”

Blitzwing huffed before sitting down, as usual, making a point to seem indignant about the matter. Bumblebee ignored him and shimmied over to his leg, prying apart some of the wiring and fishing around for the bolt in question. Blitzwing didn’t so much as grimace, and Bumblebee caught himself grinning.

“You’re acting pretty tough, aren’t you?” he mused.

Blitzwing shrugged, his leg jostling just a bit. “It doesn’t hurt much,” he said. “You shifting the wires, I mean. It’s quite sore otherwise.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” Bumblebee said, finding the bolt and sticking a digit in to start screwing it back into place. “This’ll help. Just give me a sec.”

Blitzwing grunted, waiting patiently for a moment before hissing. “Ow,” he snapped pointedly when Bumblebee’s finger slipped and bounced against a delicate strip of mesh.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Just fix it so we can keep moving.”

Bumblebee rolled his optics, making sure the bolt was secure before scooting back, giving Blitzwing some room. “Try that,” he said. “Feels better, right?”

Blitzwing took a few long moments to push himself back upright, testing his leg gingerly. “Better, yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

Bumblebee smiled widely as he sprang upright, firing some finger guns in Blitzwing’s direction. “No problem, Blitzbrain.”

* * *

Blitzwing was still fully aware of the dull ache throbbing through his leg as they continued forward, weaving in and out of trees, Bumblebee rambling aimlessly about whatever tree he happened to find particularly interesting. Leaves occasionally dropped from their branches, tiny floating sheets of orange and red and brown, and Blitzwing caught himself watching them with interest quite often.

What a strange planet this was.

He almost wanted to stop Bumblebee again, to ask him to look at his leg again. It had been hurting more and more recently, likely due to the steadily dropping temperature of the air around them and the increase in their amount of movement, but he felt strangely guilty at the idea of doing so. The bug was certainly trying to be helpful, and it seemed almost wrong to pester him.

“Blitzbrain! Are you listening?”

Blitzwing snapped out of his inner monologue and looked down. “What?”

“I asked, do you know?”

“Do I… know?”

“Why the leaves change color!”

Blitzwing’s monocular zipped toward a cascading leaf, an orange one that was apparently from a maple tree. There were a lot of maples in this area, and their color was quite brilliant. He shrugged.

“I don’t know. I can only assume is has something to do with the changing temperature,” he tried.

Bumblebee snickered, skipping around and landing pede-first into a large accumulation of the leaves. “Well, duh, a sparkling could figure that out,” he teased. “I wanna know the science of it! Is it weird that I miss Prowl’s weird nature lessons? Maybe I’ll watch some documentaries with him when I get back, you know, just because I can. I mean, look at this!”

Blitzwing was treated to a small red leaf slapping him in the face, and he frowned, unamused. “It’s not quite as serene when you throw them,” he noted.

“Well, no,” Bumblebee agreed. “But it’s fun to throw them! I see it on TV, humans use these weird broom things to push them into piles and then jump in them.”

“That seems like wasted effort.”

“Ha! Says the mech who headbutted a tree earlier!”

Blitzwing chuckled dryly in spite of himself and took another step forward, regretting it immediately when he face his face twitch into a small grimace. Bumblebee was at his pedes in an instant, staring at him viciously and pointing at the ground.

“Your leg still hurts,” he said, as if Blitzwing was unaware. “Sit.”

Blitzwing picked him up by the helm and deposited him a few feet away so he could continue walking forward. “My leg is fine,” he said shortly.

“Get back here, you big lug!”

“I’m fine!”

Blitzwing turned around to glare at Bumblebee just instants before he felt something slam into the back of his knee, and he yelped as his leg gave out and sent him crashing to the ground. Bumblebee walked up with a stinger drawn, wearing an expression of impossible smugness.

“Fine, my aft,” he said, sticking out his glossa teasingly as he kneeled at Blitzwing’s leg.

Blitzwing’s vision blurred into red. “You _kicked_ me!” he barked. “Of _course_ my leg hurts!”

“Yeah, and it hurt before I kicked you, too,” Bumblebee said. “Don’t get all red-faced on me, I’m just trying to help.”

“ _And you’re doing a lousy job!_ ”

To Blitzwing’s massive surprise, Bumblebee giggled a little bit, his stinger sparking as he pressed it to Blitzwing’s leg. Usually the Autobot hated when he was angry, and now he was _laughing_? Blitzwing wasn’t sure whether to be insulted, infuriated, flattered, or all three. “And just what are you laughing at, insect?” he growled.

“Nothing,” Bumblebee said, the smile lingering on his face, lips curved slightly up at the corners. “You’re just funny sometimes.”

“I am _not!_ You’re supposed to be _scared_ of me!”

“Oh, please. I think we’re way past the point of you scaring me,” Bumblebee pointed out. “Excuse me for trying to enjoy my time stuck in the wilderness. Do you have any idea how badly I want to be playing video games right now? Instead, all I have is your dumb shenanigans to laugh at.” 

Blitzwing felt his anger bleed away slowly, and he raised a brow once he had fully calmed down. “Are you saying I’m as entertaining as video games?” he asked.

Bumblebee paused, the electricity from his stinger ceasing for a moment before he resumed his work on Blitzwing’s leg with a tight expression on his face. “You’re a lot less predictable than video games,” he said slowly. “But… I guess so. Maybe sort of close-ish.”

Blitzwing was once again unsure of whether to be flattered or not, so he settled for silence. And, oddly, so did Bumblebee. He plucked at some wires, shifted some plating, and welded something with his mouth completely shut, only opening it when he had sat back with a satisfied expression on his face.

“Try that,” he said, his voice much softer and more nervous than normal. Blitzwing raised a brow at him.

“Are you okay?”

“Yup, super okay. Give the leg a shot. It’s getting dark and I’m kinda tired. Walking all day and whatnot.”

Mildly confused, Blitzwing tried his leg once again, standing up slowly and putting some extra weight on it. The throbbing had yet to cease, but the ache of what must’ve been plating rubbing together had significantly faded. “Much better,” he said earnestly.

Bumblebee narrowed his optics, unconvinced. “You said that earlier, too,” he said.

“I’m being honest now, I promise. It feels much better.”

Bumblebee stared up at him for a few long moments, his suspicion trickling away and morphing into something else that Blitzwing couldn’t place. Especially since Bumblebee looked down quite quickly, his little pedes kicking at the dirt.

“Well, let’s go, then,” Bumblebee said, his voice incredibly small. “We still have another hour before it gets too dark.”

“We could just stay here,” Blitzwing suggested. “There are no signs of humans, decent tree cover, and the sky is clear. A little extra rest might do us well.”

Maybe Bumblebee was just grumpy, overtired from walking so much. Surely the Autobots, a bundle of space bridge mechanics, didn’t spend much time training and building their endurance. Blitzwing was certainly not in the mood to continue walking, especially since the absence of the usual ache in his leg would hopefully make for a good night of rest. 

“You can stay under my wing in case it rains,” Blitzwing pressed. “I—”

“I don’t need to be under your stupid wing!” Bumblebee snapped, suddenly looking incredibly angry and kicking at the ground. “I can sleep just fine on my own, you know!”

Blitzwing blinked, completely taken by surprise at the outburst, and Bumblebee let out a loud, exasperated noise. 

“And stop with the spinning!” Bumblebee continued. “It’s annoying!”

“I didn’t—”

“Just… shut up. Let’s just sleep here.”

Bumblebee abruptly dropped to the ground a few yards away from Blitzwing, leaving the triple changer standing in utter bewilderment. What crawled into Bumblebee’s exhaust port? He watched as Bumblebee curled into a little ball, the same way he had when they had first gotten into this mess, the blue glow from his optics disappearing as he squeezed them shut.

“Night,” he said curtly.

Blitzwing stared in confusion for a little while longer before ultimately deciding that Bumblebee must just be in a bad mood. _No paint off my armor,_ he supposed as he took his own spot on the ground, tucking his wings back and resting on his side. 

Maybe he wasn’t the only one with mood swings around here.

* * *

Bumblebee couldn’t sleep, his tanks churning endlessly as he tried to pick through his nonsensical thoughts. Why was he angry that he was entertained by Blitzwing? Why was he so frustrated at the fact that he could actually enjoy spending time with a Decepticon?

They’d been stuck together for an indeterminate amount of time—Bumblebee was fully aware that he was atrocious at keeping track of time, but it felt like it must’ve been at least a month at this point. Anyone would find something they liked about the mech they were stuck with in order to stay sane, especially after that long of a time period.

Right?

Bumblebee tossed and turned a few times, trying to get comfortable and failing. The sun had long since slipped below the horizon before he gave up and lay flat on his back, hoping that counting the stars might put him to sleep. Counting was boring. Boring meant sleepy.

But instead, he found himself thinking about Blitzwing. Wondering about him. Wondering what he dreamed about, wondering if his repairs were sufficient, wondering why his faces spun strangely one after the other for no discernible reason, wondering, wondering, wondering. He bit back the urge to scream and flopped frantically onto his side, watching Blitzwing’s face shift from blue to red with a _whirr._

_Are you saying I’m as entertaining as video games?_

The accented voice rang in Bumblebee’s processor over and over, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. Was it because it was true? He liked video games. He thought about them a lot. He thought about Blitzwing a lot too.

Did that mean he liked Blitzwing?

The thought was strangely appalling. Tolerating each other was one thing, but actually liking spending time with Blitzwing? The idea made Bumblebee want to be sick, and he only resisted the temptation because he feared for his fuel levels. He thought back to the past few days, to the light feeling in his chest when he laughed at something Blitzwing did, the way his switching faces intrigued him rather than annoyed him, the enjoyment he got when Blitzwing had thanked him.

He _liked_ being thanked by Blitzwing. It made him feel good. It made him feel proud.

_It’s just your ego_ , Bumblebee told himself insistently, turning away from Blitzwing’s slumbering form and shutting his optics once again. _You just like doing stuff right. Don’t read too much into it._

One simple sentence should not be driving him this crazy. Bumblebee managed to drift off for what should have been a few hours, but when he woke up, the moon was still high and bright in the sky, and his frame had betrayed him by shifting about five feet closer to Blitzwing without his permission.

Bumblebee stood up sharply, denying every idea that came to his mind. He didn’t like Blitzwing. He hated him. They were enemies. He couldn’t like him. He was only putting up with him because they had no other choice but to do so. He didn’t enjoy the way Blitzwing looked around so curiously at all of the trees and shrubs, and he certainly didn’t feel relief when Blitzwing got that softened glint in his optic when his leg stopped hurting due to Bumblebee’s efforts.

No. No way.

_I don’t need Blitzwing_ , Bumblebee told himself, standing up and creeping behind a tree. _I can get home on my own. I don’t need any of this!_

He ducked behind another tree, glancing back as he heard a quiet _whirr._ Blitzwing was still on his side, red-faced, visor dimmed, a strangely tight expression on the face that usually only snarled with rage. Bumblebee vaguely wondered why before catching himself and turning around again.

_You don’t care!_ he screamed internally, moving farther away from Blitzwing. _You don’t care about how he feels, okay? Just go back to the warehouse. Even if the Decepticons see your signal, they’ll probably just ignore it. Offlining one stupid Autobot doesn’t matter to them. They have more important stuff to do._

Bumblebee didn’t turn back again as he relocated the lake’s shore, deciding promptly that Blitzwing’s plan was stupid and he could totally swim across it. It couldn’t be _that_ cold. It was just some water. He’d be fine. Some hours in the cold, and then he’d be back in Detroit in his warm room. Easy peasy. 

“Oh, frag,” he hissed the second his pede dipped into the frigid lake, his body shivering in protest. _Frag_ , that _was_ cold. But he was Bumblebee. He’d be fine. He didn’t need some stupid Decepticon to help him get home. He waded a little deeper, the water reaching his knees, his frame shaking violently, his HUD warning him that full submersion could cause system shutdowns.

He took another few steps, swiping the notifications away. He’d be fine.

Once the water reached his waist, a warning flashed on his visor without the option to clear, informing him that the water was near freezing and system shutdowns were imminent within four hours. Bumblebee ignored it and pushed forward. He could swim across a lake in four hours. He could drive across the bottom or something, full speed. Surely it wasn’t _that_ deep. Blitzwing was stupid, and his ideas were stupid, and Bumblebee was smart, and he could—

“What are you _doing?_ ”

The screech nearly made Bumblebee jump straight out of his armor, and he would have tripped face first into the water if a large servo hadn’t grabbed onto his back and hauled him backwards. Bumblebee thrashed around angrily, knowing exactly who was pulling him back and absolutely not wanting to look at whatever face he happened to be wearing. 

“Let me go!” Bumblebee hollered, kicking furiously with stiff, frozen legs. “I’m going _home!_ ”

“You’re going to go outside the range of my dampener!” Blitzwing yelled, and Bumblebee glared back at him. His face was blue, which was odd—usually Blitzwing only yelled when his face was red.

“I don’t care!” Bumblebee shouted, struggling as viciously as possible as he was dragged through muddy sand. Was he yelling about the range of Blitzwing’s dampener, or was he yelling at himself for once again wondering why Blitzwing’s tone wasn’t matching his face as expected? He screamed again in furious confusion. “I don’t care! I don’t _care!_ ”

“Shut up!” Blitzwing snapped, practically throwing Bumblebee down once they were on dry land. “What in _Primus’ name_ are you _thinking?_ ”

His face spun to red, and he leaned in close to Bumblebee, jabbing a finger into his stomach. “You could have gotten discovered, you iron-brained idiot!” he screamed. “The Decepticons will _find_ you, don’t you understand that? And they’re going to be faster at _killing_ you than your Autobots will be at _finding you!_ ”

“I don’t care!” Bumblebee repeated, trying to ignore how fiercely his frame was shuddering. “I don’t care!”

“ _You cared earlier today when you walked right next to me!_ ” Blitzwing shouted. “What has gotten _into_ you? Is your processor as tiny as your frame, or is it just malfunctioning?”

“Shut up!” Bumblebee snapped. “I’m not stupid! I’m just—I wanna go home! I don’t wanna be out here anymore!”

_I don’t want to be curious about you anymore!_ he screamed internally. _I don’t want to think about you anymore!_

“I hate you!” he said instead.

Blitzwing snarled, his gapped dentae bared, and he lifted Bumblebee from the ground. Bumblebee shrieked and tried to bite him, and Blitzwing smacked the top of his helm sharply. 

“Stop acting like a sparkling!” he snapped. “I don’t know what your fragging problem is! You seem to be _trying_ to go offline! I do rely on you, you know, and I can only do so much to protect your stupid aft!”

Bumblebee opened his mouth to protest and promptly shut it, his optics stinging painfully as he fought back tears that he didn’t understand. He shivered and folded his arms, resigning to being carried back to their little clearing. He scowled the entire way, a deep frown that rivaled Blitzwing’s even as Blitzwing muttered furiously to himself.

“Stupid Autobot,” he mumbled. “Absolute idiot. Fragging useless… can’t even look away from you for two seconds…”

Bumblebee didn’t even argue when Blitzwing sat down, keeping Bumblebee firmly in his lap. He was too busy being lost in his own thoughts, trying to comprehend what he was feeling and why he was so damn _angry_ about it. Blitzwing was a Decepticon. He couldn’t _like_ a Decepticon. He couldn’t _enjoy_ being around a Decepticon. It didn’t work like that.

“You’re staying right here,” Blitzwing said harshly, putting a servo over Bumblebee’s back. “If you move, I will wake up, and I will punch you into next _week._ ”

“Frag you,” Bumblebee grumbled bitterly.

“You shouldn’t have tried to _run away from me_ ,” Blitzwing retorted. “You will _die_ , do you get that? Or do you need me to punch it into your processor directly?”

“Shut up and go to sleep,” Bumblebee replied sharply, ignoring him.

“Moron,” Blitzwing hissed.

“Shut _up_. Go to _sleep._ ”

There was a very pregnant pause as Bumblebee shut his optics, nuzzling against Blitzwing’s lap in spite of himself. Frag, that lake was cold. In that moment, he despised how warm Blitzwing was, hating everything about how comfortable his lap was, how easy it was to tuck his small frame against it.

“Promise you won’t do that again.”

Bumblebee pried one optic open and looked up at Blitzwing, whose face was blue once again, staring down at him with his lips pressed together tightly. He almost looked… concerned. Bumblebee sighed and shut his optic before it could start stinging again.

“I promise,” he muttered.

Bumblebee heard, almost imperceptibly, a small sigh of relief, and his tanks knotted into a ball. Why did that make him happy? Blitzwing’s relief shouldn’t make him happy. That was disgusting.

“Thank you,” Blitzwing said softly.

Bumblebee scowled and rolled over so his back was against Blitzwing’s stomach. “You’re welcome.”


	12. Chapter 12

Blitzwing could tell something strange was going on with Bumblebee, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was. Bumblebee walked stiffly, his mouth shut far more often, his optics firmly downcast as if he was trying his best not to look at anything other than his pedes. And Blitzwing quickly learned that prying was not the way to approach the situation, as he’d already started two screaming matches with the simple question of “what’s wrong?”

So they trekked along in an oddly unbearable, stiff silence.

Blitzwing wasn’t sure when he had started preferring the sound of talking over soundlessness, but it was a bit of a jarring realization. He tried for conversation every so often and was rarely met with more than simple grunts of acknowledgement, almost as if their roles had switched and Bumblebee had turned into the stoic one.

It was frustrating, to say the least.

Blitzwing eventually settled on examining their surroundings for new fauna, though it was hard to find anything that he hadn’t already seen at least a thousand times. The chill in the air was consistent enough that the branches on trees were starting to look more bare and brown than colorful, and the leaves on the ground crunched beneath their pedes instead of fluttering about. Flowers were long since wilted and dead, shrubs and evergreens providing the only taste color other than the stark yellow of Bumblebee’s frame against the drab landscape.

Blitzwing chuckled dryly to himself as they walked. What an odd thought to have.

Bumblebee must’ve heard him, turning around and speaking for the first time in at least a few hours. “What are you laughing at?” he said, his voice quiet but wound as tight as a rubber band.

Blitzwing shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “There just isn’t much color outside anymore.”

“And that’s funny how?”

“It’s… not, I suppose.”

“Yeah. Exactly. So hush.”

Blitzwing couldn’t be sure, but he swore he saw the beginnings of a teasing smile on Bumblebee’s face as he returned to staring at the ground.

* * *

Bumblebee was trying his damndest to act normal, but he’d completely forgotten his own natural speech patterns since his disturbing realization a few days prior. Should he still be mean to Blitzwing, or was it more normal for him to act casual? Would it be overcompensating to start insulting Blitzwing again? Was _niceness_ more natural?

Bumblebee ended up staring at his pedes a lot, lost in thought, trying to figure out what to do. He couldn’t tell if Blitzwing noticed—no, surely he did. Bumblebee often forgot to talk for hours at a time, and Blitzwing’s berating about his chattiness had all but ceased. Would it be less suspicious to start talking up a storm once again?

It was worth a shot. He turned around to face Blitzwing, picking a pinecone from the ground and holding it up. Blitzwing blinked a few times, looking surprised.

“That’s a pinecone,” Blitzwing noted after a very uncomfortably prolonged silence.

Bumblebee seized up for a moment. Frag, he hadn’t thought of what to actually say. He scrambled for words, trying to think of something smart, any sort of conversation topic. _What do I say about a pinecone? It’s just a fragging pinecone! Just say something! Anything!_

“Yes,” he tried. “It is a pinecone.”

Blitzwing looked beyond befuddled, staring at Bumblebee for a painfully long second. “Why are you showing me a pinecone?” he asked slowly.

Bumblebee panicked and threw it at Blitzwing’s helm, watching it bounce off with a quiet _clink_. “D-do I need an explanation for everything?” he yelled, his voice an octave higher than normal. “Just let me do stuff without—without _analyzing_ everything!”

He turned away from a very confused Blitzwing, clenching his servos into fists and trudging forward.

That _probably_ could have gone worse.

* * *

It became Bumblebee’s best pastime to watch the sun rise and fall across the horizon, the days passing far too slowly as the cold air froze the hours in place. And when he wasn’t watching the sky, he was spending far too much time watching the warmth from Blitzwing’s vents curl into the air and dissipate into chilly wisps, trying to sneak peeks at his monocular to see what plant he might have taken interest in.

Blitzwing had been remarkably calm for the most part, his face holding on blue more than usual, and Bumblebee could only hope that perhaps he was just as lost in thought as he was. It was entirely possible—Bumblebee knew he was acting strange. But any time he tried to start a conversation, the words rose just like the sun and promptly died, snuffed out in the crisp breeze of late autumn.

He _wanted_ to be talking about things. He just couldn’t exactly remember _how_ , and he refused to raise any more suspicion than he already had.

There was a day when the sun was high and unobstructed by clouds, the heat penetrating the brisk air and gifting Bumblebee with the first touches of warmth that he’d felt in a long time that didn’t come from Blitzwing. Something about it must’ve thawed out his nerves, because he slowed his pace a bit to walk next to Blitzwing, fiddling nervously with his hands and praying he didn’t look too conspicuous. 

“The cold isn’t so bad when the sun’s out,” Bumblebee said quietly, looking at his pedes.

He heard the faint sound of hydraulics hissing as Blitzwing turned his neck to look down at him, and Bumblebee kept his gaze firmly on the dirt in front of him. _One foot in front of the other_ , he reminded himself. _Easy does it. Don't be weird._

“True,” Blitzwing replied. There was no harshness in his tone, but the shortness of the statement made Bumblebee cringe a little bit. So much for that attempt at conversation. The silence that followed was so strained that Bumblebee started to move a little quicker, firmly deciding that not talking was infinitely less awkward than trying. 

“I actually prefer the cold,” Blitzwing said. 

Bumblebee stopped speeding up and looked up at him, so relieved that he stumbled over a rock and nearly fell flat on his face. “Really?” he said, walking next to Blitzwing once again. “I would’ve thought that you like warm better.”

Blitzwing shook his helm. “The cold keeps my engines from overheating too quickly,” he said plainly, his monocular zipping from a dying fern to Bumblebee’s face. “It’s more manageable. More comfortable.”

“Well, I like the heat,” Bumblebee said, a little bit of a spring in his step. “Keeps my tires from deflating, feels good on the armor, easier to relax in. Bundling up is no fun, you can’t do much when you’re wrapped in a blanket.”

Blitzwing chuckled and leaned down to flick Bumblebee’s shoulder, spinning the tire that had popped so many weeks ago. “Not that it matters as much now,” he said with a small sneer.

Bumblebee scoffed, trying to ignore the way Blitzwing touch made his spark jump. _Nerves. It’s just nerves._ “Well—shut up. I still don’t like bundling. Running around is way better, feeling the condensation beading up when your vents start to push out all the hot air… man, nothing compares to that.”

Blitzwing’s gaze shifted to the sky for a few moments, presumably examining the thin strips of cloud that were blowing in from the west, his monocular shifting and zooming slowly on each one.

“Where us Decepticons are hiding, it’s quite drafty,” he said. “I’ve grown quite accustomed to it. It’s rather nice to lie down and feel a little breeze. Heat reminds me too much of explosions, of all the fighting.”

“I thought you liked fighting.”

“I do. But warmth is war. Cold is relaxation. Cold is safe.”

Bumblebee pondered for a moment, noticing that Blitzwing’s expression looked strangely tight. 

“I guess calling your calm face ‘Icy’ is kinda fitting then,” Bumblebee said, hoping to loosen whatever strain Blitzwing was hiding. And he apparently succeeded—Blitzwing looked down at him, the corners of his lips tilted upwards in a not-quite smile, but Bumblebee knew well enough by now that a face like that was the closest Blitzwing ever got to truly smiling.

“I guess so,” Blitzwing agreed.

* * *

The horizon was growing dark as Blitzwing looked across the overfilled river, already apprehensive at the sight of its rushing waters. The previous week's rainwater had raised it to a near-flood, the evidence of what had been firmly planted grass ripped from its roots waiting ominously under the surface.

It was obvious that the only way across was to walk straight through, the lake on one end and Primus only knows how many more miles of water extending on the other. Blitzwing looked down at Bumblebee, and Bumblebee looked up at him.

“I say we look for a bridge,” Bumblebee suggested.

Blitzwing shook his helm firmly. “I think we’ve established that human bridges and I don’t get along,” he said.

“Can we go around?”

“Doubtful. With the sun as low as it is, we’re too likely to get off track if we attempt to find a way around.”

“Can we, uh… is your t-cog magically fixed so we can fly over?”

“I wish.”

“Think we could jump it?”

“Bumblebee.”

“...How fast can you build a boat?”

“ _Bumblebee._ ”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Bumblebee grumbled, stepping forward and sticking a finger into the churning rapids. He shivered. “Are we sure we can’t go around?”

“Quite sure,” Blitzwing sighed, putting some extra weight on his lame leg. It felt as though it would hold just fine, his heft probably enough to keep his pedes planted on the river's bottom. There were a few protrusions of water near the center of the river that suggested it wasn’t much more than eight feet deep, and he momentarily hoped that Bumblebee would make it across without being swept away. Blitzwing wasn’t quite in the right shape for a rescue mission.

Bumblebee held an arm out invitingly toward the water, wearing a wide and incredibly plastered grin. “Age before beauty, then,” he said.

Blitzwing sighed, taking a careful step into the river and hissing quietly as the frigid water lapped at his treads. “Are you older than me?” he asked, trying to distract himself.

“Beats me,” Bumblebee said, following close behind, servos raised slightly toward one of Blitzwing’s wings. “It’s a good figure of speech even if not.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Blitzwing grumbled. 

He took slow, careful steps through the frothy waters, testing each underwater spot to ensure that no slippery rocks lay in his path. He was correct in his assumption that his weight would keep him grounded, though the same clearly couldn’t be said for Bumblebee. Blitzwing occasionally heard a small scraping sound followed by a small hand tugging on his wing for support. He almost chuckled upon feeling it a fourth time—apparently Bumblebee was as clumsy as he was talkative.

His quiet laughter was cut short as his pede hit a rock at an awkward angle, and his damaged leg twisted painfully to the side, a loud _pop_ audible even over the sound of rapids. He gasped, swore, and slipped to the side, nearly toppling over when Bumblebee suddenly appeared in front of him, arms shooting up and catching him by the chest. The water surged past Bumblebee’s shoulders, but he stood firm, easing the bulk of Blitzwing’s weight onto his back and gripping his chest tightly with raised arms.

“You’re good, Blitzbrain,” he said, his breathing labored. “Come on. Halfway there.”

Blitzwing’s teeth clenched as he tried to bite down the fresh pain pulsing in his leg, but with Bumblebee’s support under him, they managed to stagger their way across the river one step at a time. There was quite a lot of awkward stumbling as Blitzwing tried not to lean too heavily on Bumblebee, and Bumblebee’s steps were not nearly as careful as Blitzwing’s had been, but they managed nonetheless. Feeling dry ground under his pedes was a relief, and Blitzwing sat down heavily as soon as he could, clutching his dislocated knee.

Bumblebee scrambled over, dripping and shaking wildly, looking at Blitzwing’s leg with concern written all over his face. “What happened?” he asked, his digits dancing over the joint.

Blitzwing grimaced at the slight touch. “It’s fine,” he insisted. “No need to be fussing. It just dislocated, I think.”

“That’s not fine!” Bumblebee scolded, placing a servo on Blitzwing’s treads. “That slag sounded like it hurt!”

“Well, it did.”

“So it’s not fine!”

“I suppose not. But all I have to do is pop it back into place.”

“Let me at least check it over a bit,” Bumblebee said firmly, bending Blitzwing’s knee by a fraction of an inch. Blitzwing gritted his dentae so hard that he worried they may crack, and Bumblebee looked up at him with worry. “That bad, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, just sit tight,” Bumblebee said. “I just wanna check something. See, I dislocated my knee one time and it hurt really bad, right? And Ratchet had to pop it back into place, but he wanted to make sure that some piston was in alignment first.”

“What piston?”

“Not sure, that’s what I’m looking for. And I was whining and twitching because it hurt super bad, so he put on the TV and told me to watch it, right? Because he said if I’m distracted—”

Bumblebee’s servos suddenly jerked sharply, and Blitzwing felt his knee snap back into place with a revolting crunch. He dug up handfuls of dirt in his haste not to yell in pain, and Bumblebee grinned at him.

“—if I’m distracted, it doesn’t hurt quite as bad,” he finished. “The anticipation is the worst part, right?”

Blitzwing took a moment to catch his breath, the pain slowly ebbing from his leg. “I suppose so,” he said through clenched dentae.

Bumblebee grinned up at Blitzwing and crawled under his still-bent leg, shivering wildly. “Good,” he said. “‘Cause I’m _freezing._ ”

“I’m glad to know you only appreciate me as a heater,” Blitzwing said wryly, shutting his optics and waiting for his leg to stop feeling like it was made of needle-filled rubber.

Bumblebee giggled, squeezing himself into a quivering ball. “At least you’re good for something other than improving my medical skills,” he quipped.

“Fine. Fall off a cliff. See if I care.”

“I hope your leg falls off and a bear eats it.”

Blitzwing almost chuckled, lowering his leg a bit so the treads scraped against one of Bumblebee’s horns. He squirmed indignantly, covering them with his servos.

“Hey!”

“Serves you right.”

Bumblebee didn’t fight back his own small chuckle, wriggling around so his helm was protected, pressed against Blitzwing’s good leg and nestled under his bad one. “Frag you.”

* * *

_Why did he feel so much heavier?_

_His engine felt funny, bloated, as if it had expanded inside of his chassis while he’d been in stasis. His shoulders must be dislocated, there was so much pressure on them, they felt like they were splitting open. His t-cog ached. His face felt stiff. His legs felt like dead weights. What was wrong with him?_

_His processor… his processor felt wrong. Something was missing. Where was his anger? Where was his fear? He should be panicking, but he couldn’t. He wanted to panic. He wanted to scream, to break something, to make someone hurt. Why couldn’t he?_

_Something’s wrong._

_“Something’s wrong.”_

_All he could feel was blind rage. His face felt like it was melting, searing as it was stabbed with thousand knives of hot agony. Everything hurt, and he made everyone around him hurt for it. They deserved it for not answering his questions._

_What was wrong with him? What did they do to him?_

_“You needed this.”_

_He couldn’t stop laughing. All of the anger was gone, replaced by mad cackling. Hurting them felt good. He couldn’t stop laughing about it. Their pain was funny. His pain was not._

_“You’re a liability.”_

_The only door was locked. Simulations, simulations, simulations, endless battle simulations, over and over. Fighting all day, fighting nothing, fighting, fighting, fighting. His t-cog rarely stopped spinning. It hurt, everything hurt. His face, what was wrong with his face, why had everyone in the hallways stared at him? It felt as if fire was dripping from his optics, burning his faceplates, and everyone but him could see it._

_“See? Was that so hard?”_

_Yes, yes it was, it still is, everything hurts, why couldn’t he stop hurting? He’d rather be numb. He said thank you just so he could be free, so he could breathe fresh air again. He could make himself go numb so everything would stop hurting. He longed for the fiery pain to go away. What he wouldn’t do to bury himself in ice._

_“This is what you were meant to be, Blitzwing.”_

_That face, those optics, so cold as they stared right through him. He was nothing and those optics were everything. Those optics controlled everything, those optics made him into this, they gave the order. He never wanted to see those again, but he was better now, the optics told him he was better now, so he would stay next to those optics forever. If this is what he was meant to be, why did it hurt so much? Why did pain make him better? Why was he stuck with those optics on his own?_

_“Blitzwing.”_

“Blitzwing?”

_Those optics were the worst shade of red, and he didn’t want to look at them anymore, he didn’t want this, he just wanted to feel like himself again. He was drowning in red, in pain, in fear. Those damn optics glared at him when he made mistakes, narrowed, scolded, layered on more pain._

“Blitzwing!”

_He wanted himself back, but this was him now. He was stronger, he was better, he was the best, so why did those optics still terrify him so much?_

“Hey! Blitzwing!”

Blitzwing gasped as he felt a jolt of electricity, his optics flashing open and looking around wildly. It was dark, the trees merely silhouettes, the babbling of a river just a few yards behind him. The only light was a glow of blue, which he followed down to Bumblebee, who had a stinger raised, an unsettled look on his face. Blitzwing swallowed hard and leaned back against a tree, too tired to feel angry at being awoken so sharply.

“I told you not to wake me,” he said, mildly irritated with how strained his voice sounded.

Bumblebee gulped and shrank down. “Sorry,” he said meekly. “It’s just—you were—”

“Spinning, yes, I know.”

“I mean—yeah, but—sorry.”

Blitzwing raised a brow. “What do you mean, ‘but’?”

Bumblebee curled against his leg, looking almost ashamed. “It was just… it was, like… more?” he said as if he was uncertain of his own conclusion. “Usually it’s just a few spins, but it, like, wouldn’t stop, and I got—”

He paused and shut his optics, pressing his lips together. “Just go back to sleep,” he finished in a tiny voice.

Blitzwing watched him for a few moments, trying and failing to read Bumblebee’s expression through the darkness, but Bumblebee had fallen asleep once again within minutes. Blitzwing could see warm air chugging slowly from his little vents, no longer bothered by the sounds of spinning that had woken him up.

Blitzwing sighed and rested his helm back against the ground. So the dreams were getting worse again. The timing was both odd and inconvenient, though he was slightly glad to be awake at the moment. Being asleep had been providing little rest as of late, and even though he must’ve been asleep for hours, he still felt too exhausted to close his optics again.

He could just study the constellations until morning, let the cold breeze rush over his frame. It was far more relaxing than sleeping, anyway.


	13. Chapter 13

It had started pouring rain once again, ice cold rain that carried with it a chill strong enough to seep all the way under Bumblebee’s armor, soaking his circuitry in ice. He kept his arms tightly folded over his chest, aching for a conversation topic but every word falling flat once it reached his vocal processor.

Blitzwing had taken point and was walking ahead of him, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to ensure that Bumblebee was still following. And Bumblebee flinched every single time it happened, the red glow of Blitzwing’s optics shimmering through the daytime darkness, piercing straight through the heavy raindrops. Bumblebee started keeping his gaze downcast, watching mud and long-dead leaves squish under his pedes.

Blitzwing’s footprints were so much bigger than his—how could a mech even be that big? Bumblebee started jumping into the small craters left behind by Blitzwing’s pedes, watching his much smaller pedes splash through the muck, ignoring the fact that his legs were quite quickly coated in a thick layer of grime.

“What are you doing?”

Bumblebee twitched and looked up at Blitzwing, his tanks fluttering when he saw a thin, amused smirk lifting Blitzwing’s lips. He looked down in an effort to hide his embarrassment.

“Nothing.”

Blitzwing chuckled quietly, barely audible over the rain. “You’re making a mess, that’s what you’re doing.”

“Shut up, ugly.”

Blitzwing cackled after a quiet _whirr_ , his footsteps becoming far more springy. “Ohoho, haven’t heard that one in a while!” he sang. “And here I thought we were starting to get along!”

Bumblebee snorted, perhaps a little too loudly. “Yeah, as if,” he snapped. “You’re just as annoying as you’ve always been. And ugly. Just—just for the record.”

Blitzwing giggled, spinning around in the rain, spraying heavy droplets everywhere and jumping from puddle to puddle. “Whatever you say, Hummel,” he said. “But I won’t let you sleep next to me if you’re all muddy like that!”

Bumblebee scowled and made a point to jump into a particularly deep, wet pool of mud on the ground. “As if I care about sleeping next to you,” he grumbled, stomping a few times, very rapidly coating his entire lower half in freezing layers of brown. “This is how little I care. I’ll swim in the mud, I don’t care.”

Blitzwing seemed unbothered, his jagged grin only growing wider. “Oh, me next, then!” he chirped. 

“No, no no, wait—”

Before Bumblebee could even try to protest, Blitzwing launched himself toward a puddle and slammed pede-first into it, spraying mud everywhere: it coated tree trunks, slopped all across the leaves littering the ground, and smacked Bumblebee across the chest, almost completely obscuring his finish. Bumblebee gasped in annoyance and started scraping it away.

“Great job, Blitzbrain,” he snapped. “I look like a fragging mess now!”

He frowned viciously and flung a lump of the mud at Blitzwing, grinning when it caught him across the side of his helm. Blitzwing gasped, his face spinning to red.

“You tiny bastard!” he yelled. “You’ll pay for that!”

Bumblebee shrieked as Blitzwing scooped up a massive handful of mud and hurled it at Bumblebee, effectively drenching him in the slop. Blitzwing snickered, looking proud of himself.

_At least he’s still a total aft_ , Bumblebee thought, torn between irritation and amusement, preparing another ball of mud in his hands. _I can hate him again if he’s being a jerk._

* * *

“No! Get off of me! _Off!_ ”

“Shut up, puny insect! I’m trying to help you!”

“I don’t need your help! Get _off!_ ”

Bumblebee screamed and thrashed in Blitzwing’s arms, flinging flecks of mud everywhere, and Blitzwing had to bite down a scream of frustration. “What’s the big deal?” he shouted, once again trying to lower Bumblebee into the water, only to be met with more protests.

“I don’t need a _bath!_ ” Bumblebee yelled. “I’m not a sparkling! It’s just some mud!”

“Then stop _acting_ like a sparkling! You’re _filthy!_ ” Blitzwing argued angrily, trying to strongarm Bumblebee into a position where he could dunk him in the water. “You’re going to freeze to death if you don’t clean off, you idiot!”

“I’m gonna freeze to death touching that water!” Bumblebee protested, somehow wriggling out of Blitzwing’s grasp for the fifth time and attempting to run away. Blitzwing growled and scooped him back up again, holding tightly to his helm and sticking his frame into the river they had been walking by. Bumblebee shrieked, splashing water everywhere as he kicked furiously.

“What’s the problem, Autobot?” Blitzwing snapped. “It’s just some water!”

“No, it’s not!” Bumblebee whined, slowing his fight but ensuring that he sloshed a hefty amount of water Blitzwing’s way. “Stop _touching_ me so much! It’s annoying!”

“Since when have you cared?!”

“Since—since—shut up! Let me go! I don’t want a bath!”

“You’re getting a bath whether you like it or not, you undersized insect!”

“No!”

“You’re _in the water!_ You’re getting a bath right now!”

“ _No!_ ”

Blitzwing hissed and kept his servo wrapped tightly around Bumblebee, watching as he kicked and screamed up a storm, his movements effectively creating a froth that cleared a significant amount of the mud from his frame. Once Blitzwing lifted him up again, Bumblebee was drenched but clean, his arms folded tightly over his chest as his legs dangled below him.

“Happy now?” he muttered.

Blitzwing chuckled dryly, his annoyance seeping away, and he carried Bumblebee back to shore. “In a manner of speaking,” he said.

He reached a servo out to try brushing the cold water from Bumblebee’s frame and was met with immediate protests as Bumblebee squirmed viciously once again. “I said not to touch me!” Bumblebee yelled. “Stop touching me!”

“Are your circuits frozen or something?” Blitzwing said, withdrawing his servo with a brow raised. “Just yesterday, you were using my leg as a blanket. What’s gotten into you?”

Bumblebee looked up at Blitzwing with an unreadable expression, his blue optics big and full of emotions Blitzwing couldn’t place. “Nothing,” Bumblebee said harshly. “Just—stop being nice. It’s annoying.”

“Pardon me, I didn’t mean to try and _help_ you.”

“Yeah. So knock it off.”

“I was being sarcastic, Bumblebee.”

Bumblebee’s expression tightened even further as Blitzwing set him down in a patch of dying grass. His little yellow arms folded immediately once he was free of Blitzwing’s grasp, and he turned his back quite pointedly.

“Stop saying my name,” he muttered.

Blitzwing cocked his helm. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t like it when you call me ‘Bumblebee,’” Bumblebee said, as if that cleared anything up. “Just—insult me, or call me ‘bug’ or ‘Autobot’ or whatever. I don’t care. Just not ‘Bumblebee.’”

“I… don’t follow. When I called you ‘Autobot,’ you—”

“Stop!” Bumblebee snapped, hunching down. “S-stop listening to me! Stop trying to do nice things, okay? Be an aft again, I don’t care! I’m tired of you pretending to be all considerate of my feelings and all that slag!”

“I wasn’t aware that I was.”

“Well, it feels that way. And it’s gross. So stop it. I hate it. And I hate you.”

Blitzwing rolled his optics and kept silent. Whatever was going on with the Autobot, clearly he didn’t have interest in talking about it. 

“Are you hungry, B—Autobot?” he tried, hoping that maybe Bumblebee was just low on fuel.

Bumblebee scoffed. “No,” he grumbled. “I’m at, like, half capacity.”

“That’s rather low.”

“It’s _fine._ Can you just shut up and leave me alone?”

Blitzwing sighed and sat in his own patch of grass, giving Bumblebee a little bit of distance. “With pleasure,” he mumbled.

Bumblebee grunted in quiet thanks.

* * *

_It was so hot in this room, unbearably hot. Every pull of air into his aching vents felt like fire, every puff that came back out laden with steam._

_It was so hot, it was so ridiculously hot, he was going to melt. The only relief was the freezing rush blasting from his canons and the cold liquid that seeped down his cheeks. It was so hot, why were there no windows? He just wanted one gulp of fresh air, one minute, one second, even. Anything._

_More simulations. They were still coming. His face hurt again. There was only anger, only blind fury, and he only made more heat. Was it his fault it was so hot in here? It felt so good to demolish with his fiery cannons, but Primus, it was so hot, it was unbearably hot. When was he going to be let out? How long had he been here?_

_The door opened and brought no relief with it. Everything was red, but those optics were redder, and he felt himself pushing against the opposite wall, cowering, begging, pleading, over and over until his vocalizer felt raw._

_“No. You’re not ready yet.”_

_Please, please, just let him leave, let him out of this room, it was too hot, everything felt too hot. His armor was going to melt off. Everything hurt and everything burned and it was too fragging hot._

_“Learn to adapt, then.”_

_Adapt, adapt, how was he going to adapt? His face hurt, he didn’t want it to hurt more again, but he had to. He needed the cold. He craved it like he’d never craved anything in his entire life. He took a breath, two, three, ten, fifteen, thirty, and his face was stabbed with a molten blade of agony, but he could make the heat go away now. He panted and fired his cannons again, only he wasn’t firing them, it was cold, it was ice, it was a sweet relief blasting through the barrels and filling the room with a piercing chill. He sank to his knees, holding his face, not wanting the optics to see him sobbing with relief as the steam turned to mist._

_“You are staying in this room until you get yourself under control.”_

_No, no, please, he didn’t want to be in here anymore, he didn’t know how to control it, he didn’t even know why it was happening._

_“Figure it out, then.”_

_Please, don’t leave, don’t shut the door, please, he was begging, he was screaming, he was... laughing? Why was he laughing?_

_“You have potential. You could be on my personal crew someday. Prove it to me or this door stays locked, Blitzwing.”_

_He didn’t want this, he didn’t want to be here, but he had to if he was going to get out. Time passed and took pain with it, slowly, slowly, everything moved slowly and quickly in this room all at once. He didn’t know how much time had gone by, but he was ready, he was finally ready. His optics were narrowed, his expression was colder than his cannons, his fists were clenched._

_“About time, Blitzwing. Come with me. See, was that so hard?”_

“Blitzwing?”

_Yes, yes it was, it still is, everything hurts, why couldn’t he stop hurting?_

“Hey! Blitzbrain! You’re doing it again!”

_He’d rather be numb. He said thank you just so he could be free, so he could breathe fresh air again. He could make himself go numb so everything would stop hurting._

“For frag’s sake, Blitzwing!”

Blitzwing’s optics snapped open, recognizing immediately what had happened and glaring down at Bumblebee, dentae bared, his vision blurred with red.

“What the hell is your problem, Autobot?” he yelled.

“Nothing!” Bumblebee said. “What the hell is _your_ problem? I’m trying to sleep and your faces are spinning like—like—do you know what a merry-go-round is?”

“A what?”

“No, then, okay,” Bumblebee muttered. “It’s like, you don’t even stop on a face like normal, you’re just spinning nonstop. It’s super weird and it’s _super_ loud. Are you, like… having nightmares or something?”

“I thought you didn’t care,” Blitzwing snarled.

Bumblebee paused, looking taken aback. He looked down at his servos, fidgeting with the tips of his fingers. “I… I don’t,” he mumbled.

“Fantastic,” Blitzwing spat. “Then do what I asked and _stop waking me up._ ”

“B-but—”

“Just _stop!_ ” Blitzwing yelled. “Whatever issue your tiny processor is dealing with needs to figure itself out, because you are driving me up a _fragging wall!_ Nice one moment, then acting like a total aft the next! Get your helm out of your exhaust port before I _yank it out for you!_ ”

Bumblebee stared up at Blitzwing, slightly slack-jawed, his optics massive and bright with panic. He looked upset, and that only annoyed Blitzwing further, hating that he had no idea why the stupid Autobot was upset in the first place. And he only got angrier when the thought crossed his mind that if he knew what the issue was, he could try fixing it. Bumblebee’s problems weren’t his. He had no obligation to care.

Blitzwing scoffed loudly, more at himself than at Bumblebee, pressing his optics shut. “Go back to sleep,” he growled. “And don’t talk. I’m tired of hearing your stupid voice.”

He heard some quiet shuffling as Bumblebee crawled away, his movements tiny and dejected before he stopped somewhere far away. Blitzwing strained his audials to try and listen, waiting to hear the sound of Bumblebee falling asleep and wondering why he felt sodden with guilt when the quiet snores never came.

* * *

The walk the next morning was infinitely more awkward than any before it.

Bumblebee didn’t even start off the day with so much as a “good morning,” simply keeping his mouth closed and hiding behind a tree until Blitzwing woke up. Blitzwing didn’t greet him, his cerulean face as stiff as it had been the day they’d first washed ashore, stretching his bad leg without casting a gaze Bumblebee’s way. 

They both simply stood up, looked toward the south, and started walking.

The silence was agonizing. Bumblebee couldn’t even bring himself to apologize, as much as he wanted to. He tried a few times, preparing his words and feeling them fall flat in his vocalizer.

_Blitzwing, I’m sorry for being confusing. I’m just confused because I actually find you tolerable, and—no, I can’t say that. Just say it like it is, you wuss! Okay. Blitzwing, I know I’m being weird, but it’s because I like spending time with you and I feel like I shouldn’t because you’re a Decepticon. See? That’s perfect. Say that. Three, two, one, go._

Bumblebee opened his mouth and promptly shut it.

_Or not_ , he thought bitterly.

* * *

Guilt kept gnawing at Blitzwing as they trekked through the forest. Bumblebee was ridiculously easy to read, his shoulders slumped, his posture atrocious, his footsteps lacking all of their usual spring. Blitzwing felt bad about it: sure, the bug was being frustrating, but yelling at him surely hadn’t eased whatever was weighing on his processor.

_Perhaps I should apologize_ , Blitzwing thought. _There was no sense in being so rude. Even if he is being completely insufferable… Stupid Autobot bug, I should just punch him right in his stupid, idiotic—_

Bumblebee glanced over his shoulder, meeting Blitzwing’s gaze for half a second before flinching and looking firmly forward again. Blitzwing felt his tanks sink.

_He’s scared of me_ , he thought bitterly, forcing himself to calm down, realizing too late that his vision was smeared with crimson. _Wonderful job, Blitzwing. And just when this awful situation was starting to become slightly tolerable._

He watched Bumblebee for a while, hoping that he would eventually get bored with moping and perk up once again. He’d done that after plenty of their fights, so logically, this should be no different. But Bumblebee stayed shockingly silent, hunched over as he walked, ignoring all of the incredibly tempting mud puddles around them.

Blitzwing sighed as quietly as he could. He hated feeling guilty more than he hated unanswered questions, it seemed.

* * *

Staying silent for an entire day was completely exhausting. By the time Blitzwing had wordlessly pointed out a tidy grove of trees fit for them to rest in, Bumblebee was dragging his pedes across the ground, trying over and over to say something, _anything_. But he couldn’t manage a single word, simply nodding and collapsing onto a patch of fallen evergreen needles.

He stared up into the tree branches, optics wide open, trying to count the stars in the sky. It was hard to see very many, what with the clouds hanging heavy and low from yesterday’s thunderstorm, but he managed to pick out two or three nestled just within sight. One of them looked like a shooting star, and Bumblebee was strangely disappointed when he spotted the blinking red light moving alongside the star.

A plane, not a shooting star. Bumblebee sighed and started counting pine needles. His frame felt tired, overworked, sore, but his processor was still spinning as much as it had been in the middle of the day. _Just apologize_ , he told himself for the millionth time. _Just tell him what’s going on, and worst case scenario, he laughs at you and you pretend it was all a joke. Just say something before you go nuts! You might be stuck out here in these woods in silence for weeks!_

Bumblebee sighed, flicking a pinecone into the darkness surrounding the small clearing. This was hopeless. He closed his optics, praying for rest, hoping with his entire spark that he could just slip into recharge and not have to deal with his annoying feelings for a few hours.

_Whirr._

“Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me,” Bumblebee hissed, smacking his servos onto his face in annoyance. Of all the miserable timing, Blitzwing had to fall asleep _right now?_ Bumblebee had no idea what to do if Blitzwing started freaking out again—he’d been told quite firmly not to wake him up, but the night before, he’d been spinning for five minutes straight. How could he _not_ wake him up?

_Whirr._

“What’s going on in that processor of yours, Blitzbrain?” Bumblebee whispered, as if he was expecting an answer. He poked his helm out from behind his tree, greeted by Blitzwing’s inky black face, the grin wide enough to nearly split his entire face in half. The corners of his mouth twitched down a bit, and Bumblebee frowned. That face almost always smiled.

_Whirr._

Blitzwing’s servos tightened into fists and started jerking slightly. Bumblebee cocked his helm a little bit in confusing, watching Blitzwing’s gap-toothed snarl falter significantly into a look that resembled panic.

_Whirr._

His blue expression was strained for barely a moment before it started happening again. Nonstop spinning, nonstop _noise_ , and Bumblebee grimaced. It was incredibly eerie to watch, seeing what had been Blitzwing’s face turn into a mere blur of color. Bumblebee covered his audials and turned away, waiting for it to stop so he could get some sleep.

And a few minutes later, when Bumblebee tried prying his hands from his audials, Blitzwing was still at it.

_What could that mean?_ Bumblebee wondered, glancing at Blitzwing again as his face spun out of control. _His faces are his moods or something, right? So maybe he… isn’t having any mood? Or he’s having too many? Frag, I have no idea how he works… Ugh, I just wanna go to sleep._

Bumblebee watched for at least five more minutes before the sound started to grate on his nerves harder than nails on a chalkboard. He hissed and pressed his servos into his audials harder, but the whirring was impossible to block out. It was all he could hear, and he finally snapped, scooping up a pinecone and hurling it at Blitzwing’s helm with all of his strength.

Blitzwing’s face snapped to blue, his optics flashing open as he did something incredibly strange—he grabbed onto the treads on his legs, his fingers digging into them so tight that it looked painful even from a distance. Bumblebee sat bewildered for a moment before instinct took over, and he rushed toward Blitzwing and smacked one of his servos hard.

“Hey, Blitzbrain!” he snapped. “What are you—”

Bumblebee abruptly cut himself off when he noticed that Blitzwing was shaking, and quite violently too. Bumblebee stared at him before more gently pulling Blitzwing’s other servo away from his treads, concern gripping his spark.

“Blitzbrain, what’s going on?” he asked, watching as Blitzwing’s expression cleared, the trembling fading away. Red optics fell on blue, and Blitzwing shrugged.

“Nothing,” he said quietly.

“Blitzwing—”

“It’s nothing,” Blitzwing said, much more firmly. “It’s normal. Just… not this frequently. Lugnut often complained of it as well.”

Bumblebee paused, taking advantage of the fact that they were talking, shrinking down nervously.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “For—for waking you up.”

“I understand,” Blitzwing said. “I’m sure it’s quite frustrating.”

“Well, yeah, but… no, I’m sorry for waking you up at all,” Bumblebee said. “You told me not to, and I did. So… I’m sorry.”

Blitzwing kept his optics locked on Bumblebee’s for a few moments, an almost imperceptible tremble sliding over his face.

“You’re forgiven,” Blitzwing said. “Really, I don’t know why it keeps happening. It’s been quite some time since it last happened, and now multiple nights in a row… It’s rather strange.”

“Do you know why it happens?” Bumblebee asked. “Any idea at all?”

“Unfortunately, no, or I’d find a way to… get it under control.”

Bumblebee nodded. “That’s fine,” he said, pressing his lips together and starting back toward his tree. Blitzwing suddenly looked up, that strange unreadable expression on his face once again, caught somewhere between fear and hope and annoyance.

“Would you—it would be easier if you stayed nearer to me,” Blitzwing said. “Just in case it starts happening again. The stingers were quite effective at waking me up.”

Bumblebee raised a brow. “So now I _am_ supposed to wake you up?” he asked.

Blitzwing shrugged lightly. “I can always go back to sleep,” he said. “And if you wake me up after it happens, perhaps I can start pinpointing the cause. Maybe it is simply a nightmare.”

Bumblebee had a strange feeling that Blitzwing knew exactly what the reason for his spinning fits was, and the idea of sleeping next to him again made his tanks flutter uncomfortably. Was it cuddling now, if Bumblebee admitted to himself that he didn’t hate the Decepticon?

He contemplated for a little while before creeping hesitantly toward Blitzwing, curling up near one of his legs and resting his helm against his arms. “Okay,” he said uncertainly. “But don’t go screaming at me when I do wake you up. Because I will.”

“Understood, Autobot.”

Bumblebee sighed, repositioning himself a little closer to Blitzwing, hoping to soak in some of the heat he put off.

“‘Bumblebee’ is fine,” he said quietly.

Blitzwing chuckled. “So now I _am_ supposed to call you ‘Bumblebee?’” he said mockingly.

“Shut up, or I’ll let you spin until your faces all fall off.”

“I seriously doubt that will happen.” Without warning, Blitzwing gently placed a servo on Bumblebee and scooted him against his leg. Bumblebee wriggled in silent protest before realizing just how much warmer Blitzwing’s frame was than his own, and he grumbled and settled down. His dignity had taken plenty of hits recently: it could manage a few more.

“Yeah, well, you never know,” Bumblebee said with a small smirk. “A mech can hope.”

Blitzwing made a sound that might have been a chuckle. “Yes,” he said softly. “They certainly can.”

“And what do you mean by that, loser?”

“Go to sleep, Bumblebee.”

“No, _you_ go to sleep, Blitzwing.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You’re—uh—ugly.”

“And you’re bad at coming up with insults, apparently.”

Bumblebee snickered in spite of himself. _Dammit_ , he thought, closing his optics. _I’m trying to be mad at him and I’m still laughing... I’m so totally screwed._


	14. Chapter 14

Blitzwing was finding it hard to get a decent night of rest, constantly waking up tired, his leg aching from overuse, his processor spinning. The idea of walking every single day was getting less and less appealing, and Blitzwing was completely sure that his unwillingness to move quickly was severely hindering their progress.

Though if Bumblebee cared, he didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t say much of anything, in fact. Blitzwing tried to ignore the pressing silence, grateful that it was at least less awkward than usual but wishing Bumblebee would provide him with more than just a little sound of acknowledgment any time Blitzwing tried to say something.

He still had no clue what Bumblebee’s issue was, after all. Sometimes he seemed to be back to normal, jumping and bouncing and chatting at small organic creatures, but other times he seemed to be lost in his own processor, mouth shut, looking anywhere but at Blitzwing.

It was peculiar, and quite an interesting puzzle at first. The more Blitzwing stared at Bumblebee, particularly in the optics, the more Bumblebee shrunk and disappeared within himself. Blitzwing would have assumed it was out of fear, but when nighttime fell, Bumblebee never failed to curl up next to him, his tiny vents puffing small clouds of crystallized, warm air.

There was only one logical explanation for such peculiar behavior.

“Bumblebee,” Blitzwing called, watching the little Autobot chase a very confused squirrel up a tree. Bumblebee jumped a little bit at the sudden noise, whirling toward Blitzwing, then back at the tree where the squirrel had disappeared.

“Aw, he got away!” Bumblebee sulked. “Thanks a lot, Blitzbrain.”

“What use did you have for a squirrel?”

“You’re one to talk!”

Blitzwing felt the beginnings of a grin quirk on his face, but he quickly squashed down the urge. “Fair enough,” he said. “But I have a question for you. Regarding your sudden change in behavior.”

Blitzwing wasn’t surprised to see Bumblebee go quite stiff, though the fact that his optics flooded with genuine panic was a stronger reaction than Blitzwing had been expecting. “You do?” Bumblebee squeaked. He coughed and reset his vocalizer, trying again in a voice that was only slightly stronger. “Uh. Y-you do?”

“Yes,” Blitzwing said. “I believe I know the cause for why you’re acting so strange as of late.”

Bumblebee stopped walking for a moment, his servos clenching and unclenching into fists over and over. “Is… is that right?” he said, his voice cracking harshly over each syllable. 

“There’s no need to be embarrassed,” Blitzwing assured him, squatting down to pat Bumblebee’s helm. Poor thing must be so nervous, having such a topic approached. “I know you have a rather familial relationship with your teammates, and it’s perfectly natural for you to miss them. There’s no reason to be so closed off about it.”

Blitzwing had been expecting Bumblebee to have a relatively strong reaction to any mention of the Autobots, especially from Blitzwing’s mouth. He had not, however, been expecting the flash of confusion that passed over Bumblebee’s face.

“W...what?” Bumblebee said. “You think—I, uh—I mean, yeah. I guess. That must be what it is.”

Blitzwing cocked his helm curiously. “Am I incorrect?”

“No!” Bumblebee said, incredibly quickly. “No, not at all. That’s definitely it. Nothing else. Not a thing in the world. I… do miss them, yeah. It’s been, what, like, at least a couple of months that we’ve been out here, right?”

“Something like that,” Blitzwing agreed.

Bumblebee sighed, rubbing his forehead, his expression puzzling Blitzwing. He did look distraught, as he had for days now, but it was a different brand of distraught. There was more regret in Bumblebee’s optics than anger, more grief than confusion.

“I’ve been with them for so long, I can’t believe I haven’t even been thinking about them for months now,” Bumblebee said, his voice small and soft. “We did space bridge duty for ages, and then all the stuff on Earth, and now I’m stuck with you. It just… sucks.”

“You look guilty,” Blitzwing noted.

Bumblebee frowned a little more. “Maybe a little, I guess,” he said uncertainly. “I just hope they’ve been doing stuff while I’m gone, not just looking for me. Keeping an eye out for Cons, making sure Sari’s okay… man, I hope Sari’s okay.”

“Is ‘Sari’ the little organic creature you all seem to take everywhere with you?” Blitzwing asked snidely.

“She’s more than a ‘little organic,’ she’s my best friend,” Bumblebee said protectively, puffing out his chest a little bit. “Well, her and Bulkhead. But her a little bit more. Don’t tell Bulkhead.”

“I’ll try not to bring it up.”

Bumblebee chuckled dryly. “I just know them well enough to know that Boss bot is probably worried out of his mind,” he said. “Optimus, I mean. He’s a bit of a worrywort when he doesn’t know where we are. Kinda freaks out when people go missing. Not sure why.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah…” Bumblebee’s voice trailed off, his optics cast down to his pedes for a few moments. “Do you miss the Decepticons?” he asked.

Blitzwing couldn’t help himself—he laughed. A short, harsh laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “No,” he said, covering his mouth a bit to stifle his chuckles. “Not even remotely.”

“Really?” Bumblebee said, looking surprised. “You and Lugnut are, like, inseparable.”

“Due to our positions within the ranks, we have little other choice,” Blitzwing said wryly. “I wouldn’t say we get along particularly well. Nor would I ever consider him to be something of a ‘friend.’”

Bumblebee pondered in silence for a little while longer, and Blitzwing found himself appreciating the quiet a little more. It was a natural sort of silence that came alongside conversation, a more comfortable silence than anything they’d had in quite some time. Bumblebee was thinking about what Blitzwing was saying, processing it, listening to him. Quite a lovely change from having orders barked in his direction.

“What about Starscream?” Bumblebee asked, a bit of a mischievous grin on his face. “Is there anything about him you like?”

“Primus, no,” Blitzwing scoffed, unable to hide the disgust in his expression. “Starscream is an obnoxious traitor that I would hardly even consider a Decepticon, let alone a friend.”

“Megatron, then?” Bumblebee asked. “He’s your leader, you must feel at least a _little_ something about being away from him, right?”

Blitzwing almost stopped walking, only barely managing to keep himself from stopping dead in his tracks. “No,” he said once again, his voice flat. “There is no part of me that misses Megatron.”

“Really? Nothing?” Bumblebee had that spring in his step once again that oh-so-clearly indicated that he was getting particularly interested in something Blitzwing was saying, and Blitzwing wasn’t sure if he was grateful for the return of that annoying bouncing or not. “I mean, we all get annoyed with how bossy Optimus is sometimes, but I still miss him. Though I don’t blame you for not missing Megatron, that fragger’s bigger than you, and about ten times as scary. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“ _And_ he’s so mean! He’s not even, like, a cool badass leader, he’s just freaky. Totally skeeves me out. I’d go nuts if I had to hang out with him all day, wherever you guys are. You said it’s kinda drafty, right? So it’s probably some big empty room, so you never get away from him—ugh. I’d fry my processor. I heard someone say he’s a cannibal, is that true? Did he eat people during the war? Did you even know him back then? I mean, you must be really high in the ranks if you’re one of the only ones that was on that ship with him that we blew up, but was he even scarier back then? I was totally gonna fight in the war until I got kicked out of the academy, but—”

“Bumblebee?”

Bumblebee stopped talking and looked up at Blitzwing with his mouth still open a bit. “Yeah?”

“I don’t particularly want to talk about Megatron.”

Bumblebee’s mouth hung open for a little while longer, and Blitzwing cringed at his own hypocrisy. He’d been pushing for conversation for so long, and now that he finally got it, he was cutting it off? No wonder the bug was frustrated with him.

But to Blitzwing’s surprise, Bumblebee shut his mouth and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that’s fine. What _do_ you wanna talk about, then?”

Blitzwing looked at Bumblebee curiously for a few moments, almost too puzzled to be grateful. Such understanding was rather uncharacteristic, but he certainly wasn’t going to complain about it. “Keep telling me about the Autobots, if you so wish,” Blitzwing said with a shrug. “Not that I care about them in any way, but it’s better than silence.”

Bumblebee snickered a bit, looking rather pleased with himself. “Remember when you told me to shut up all the time?” he said snidely.

“Would you prefer that I start doing that again?” Blitzwing fired back, angry burst of red flashing across his processor.

Bumblebee simply grinned and raised his arms in a shrug. “Hard pass on that, Blitzbrain,” he said. “Just give me a second to think of a good first story.”

* * *

Bumblebee was by no means a storyteller, but Blitzwing found himself rather unopposed to the constant stream of chatter that came from the Autobot for the rest of that afternoon. The stories he told ranged from totally mundane to exciting yet nonsensical, and while Blitzwing suspected Bumblebee may have been tweaking some of the finer details for the sake of a good tale, he listened and nodded along nonetheless.

The return of the blabbering was welcome. It was certainly better than wondering why he preferred the sound of Bumblebee talking over the sound of silence.

“So then Prowl gets the barnacles on him, right?” Bumblebee said, mocking the ninja’s classic stance by standing on one pede. “And so I take Sari and we have to totally run away, because he’s snarling and frothing at the mouth and walking all weird, and it was totally gross. And then—get this—we go back to that cave and I knock a bunch of rocks on him, but then Sari tells me that we were supposed to seal him in the cave _without_ us in it! So then we have to run for our lives _again!_ ”

“That seems to be a recurring trend for you,” Blitzwing said, feeling a smirk rise on his lips.

Bumblebee scowled and punched the air. “Shut your trap, Blitzbrain, I’m not done yet. So then I got this hose that said ‘fire hose’ on the label, but did you know those shoot fire, not water? And we run into this furnace room, and that’s all I can remember because I got the barnacles on me too! All I remember is coming to and Sari is standing in front of me, totally soaked in water and looking all exhausted. It was absolutely nuts.”

“So let me get this straight,” Blitzwing said, still smirking. “You essentially blundered your way through a rescue mission, as usual, based on what you’ve told me, and you’re proud of that?”

“I’m a top notch blunderer!” Bumblebee said defensively. “I mean, space barnacles? Those things are insane! We could’ve gotten eaten!”

“It appears the name ‘ _Bumble_ bee’ is rather fitting for you, then,” Blitzwing said with a chuckle.

“Oh, super fitting, yeah!”

“That was an insult.”

“Yeah, I’m just starting to take everything you say as a compliment,” Bumblebee said proudly. “Did I ever tell you how I got my name in the first place?”

“You have not.”

“Wanna hear?”

Blitzwing felt his smirk morph into what felt more like a genuine, albeit thin smile, and he nodded. “You’re going to tell me whether I want to or not, correct?” he said, hoping that masked his obvious relief that they were apparently on speaking terms once again.

“Absolutely. So there was this total aft of a drill sergeant, Sentinel Minor, right?”

“Large blue mech, promoted to Prime rather recently, very large chin?”

“Yep, that’s the one. So—okay, let me back up first—first I gotta explain the whole Wasp thing.”

Blitzwing found it rather easy to keep pace while Bumblebee was talking, his stories so incredibly animated that he regularly slowed down to wave his arms around for emphasis. Though Blitzwing’s limp had yet to improve by much, healing in all the wrong ways, the pain was far less bothersome when he had something entertaining to watch. And Bumblebee was nothing if not entertaining.

* * *

Bumblebee’s vocalizer was starting to get slightly sore by the time the sun started to set, completely forgetting about his predicament in his excitement to tell Blitzwing as many stories about his life as he possibly could. It was fun, getting a chance to tell stories to someone who hadn’t lived them, where he could embellish them as much as he wanted and not get called out for it. He was pretty sure Blitzwing could tell when he was exaggerating, but the triple changer had yet to call him out for it, so Bumblebee continued.

It was fun, that was for sure. And Bumblebee was glad to be having fun, to not be worrying about his feelings toward Blitzwing.

He was halfway through a story about Autobot boot camp when Blitzwing finally cut him off, putting a servo onto Bumblebee’s shoulder and pointing into the distance. Bumblebee tried to follow his line of sight, seeing little more than trees, giggling a bit when he saw Blitzwing’s monocular zipping in an out as it focused on something.

“Blitzbrain, you know I can’t see as far as you when you use your weird optic thingy,” he said amusedly.

Blitzwing rolled his good optic. “Right,” he grumbled. “Well, there’s a building in the distance.”

Bumblebee perked up immediately, standing on the tips of his pedes as if that would provide him any edge in increasing his range of vision. “Really?” he said, excitement rippling through him. “Does that mean—?”

“We’re likely getting close to Detroit,” Blitzwing said, confirming Bumblebee’s excited thoughts. “It’s a large, flat building, perhaps one story tall at most. Very wide.”

Bumblebee couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed. “That’s probably just a warehouse,” he said. “Those are all over the place.”

“A warehouse,” Blitzwing repeated, as if tasting the word. “Well, worst case scenario, it will provide sufficient shelter for the night. With the temperature as low as it is, I’d rather not be outside any more than we have to.”

Bumblebee hadn’t even been aware of how cold it was, too wrapped up in his stories, and he clutched his arms on instinct as a shudder went through him. “I second that,” he said. “And I mean, a dumpy old warehouse is better than nothing, right? We’re getting close to somewhere, even if it’s not Detroit.”

Blitzwing looked down at Bumblebee with the glimmer of a thin smile on his face, and Bumblebee hated how his spark pulsed when he saw it. “Correct,” Blitzwing said. “Remember, we cannot be seen by humans. Or _I_ cannot, rather.”

“I know, I know,” Bumblebee said impatiently, grabbing onto Blitzwing’s wrist and tugging him forward. “But hey, if there _are_ humans around, maybe it’s heated. I’d kill for a heater right about now.”

The idea of a temperature-controlled room was enough to make Bumblebee break into a run, Blitzwing barely keeping up behind him. He couldn’t fight his excitement, a wide grin spreading on his face as he forced Blitzwing into a jog. They were finally, _finally_ making progress.

* * *

The warehouse was, unfortunately, not heated, and it was incredibly dark on the inside, so much so that Bumblebee had to keep his headlights on just to navigate amongst the racks upon racks of empty shelving units. Though on the plus side, Bumblebee supposed, there were no humans around. It seemed to be abandoned, not old enough to be a victim of nature’s persistent decaying touch against all things inorganic, but it did have a sturdy ceiling and walls that kept the wind from slicing through Bumblebee’s armor.

Bumblebee sighed loudly in pleasure at having real shelter for once, flopping down on the hard concrete floor with a dopey smile on his face.

“This is awesome,” he said. “I’ve been needing a good night of rest. And no wind, not even a little. This is going to be perfect.”

“My wings are scratched,” Blitzwing muttered tartly, looking put out as he arranged some empty boxes into a makeshift pillow.

“At least there was a door big enough for you to fit through at all,” Bumblebee said, smirking and rolling onto his back, splayed out across the floor. 

“Barely.”

“Oh, stop being such a whiner. We have shelter, there’s no humans, and your paint is scuffed as slag anyway,” Bumblebee said brightly. “We both are. We look like we got stuck in a blender. No one’s gonna care about a few extra scratches from some dumb garage door.”

Blitzwing grunted in acknowledgement as he finished his little box setup, patting the cardboard to ensure that it would stay in place. “I suppose,” he said, no less bitter than before. “How about we get that rest, then?”

“Good idea,” Bumblebee said, relieved at the idea of closing his optics and being able to stretch out instead of huddle up for an evening. “Toss me one of those boxes, would you? You’re making me want a pillow.”

Blitzwing sighed but complied, selecting a box from his stack toward Bumblebee and arranging it under his helm. “Sleep as much as you want,” he said. “We don’t know how long it will be before we find such a suitable place to rest.”

“Now _that’s_ an order I can follow,” Bumblebee said, folding his arms behind his head. It felt a little odd, not being squished against Blitzwing just to keep his core temperature up, but it wasn’t a change Bumblebee was going to argue against. They’d gone the whole day without any overly extended awkward silences, and Bumblebee was content to keep it that way. He flicked off his headlights, watching the yawning darkness cascade over them once again.

“Rest well, Bumblebee,” Blitzwing said, his monocular dimming, the last shreds of warm red light slipping away. Bumblebee grinned, glad that his smiling face was invisible.

“You too, Blitzbrain.”

* * *

The _whirr_ echoed louder than Bumblebee had ever heard it, startling him awake as the sound bounced around the contained walls. His optics snapped open, headlights flickering on, leaping to his pedes as if he had just woken up with a gun pointed at his face. He drew his stingers almost on instinct, aiming them at the source of the noise.

He exhaled sharply as soon as the purple glint of Blitzwing’s frame came into full view. _Duh_ , Bumblebee thought meekly, lowering his arms as the stingers discharged. _Just Blitzbrain, as usual. Am I ever going to get used to that?_

Bumblebee sat back down, clutching his chest as his spark raced at a million miles per hour. It had been quite a while since he’d been startled awake like that, and to make matters worse, Bumblebee found himself worrying about what might be to come. Blitzwing’s mysterious nightmares had only been getting more and more severe as the days went by, for reasons Bumblebee didn’t understand, but he knew for sure that he was stressed on Blitzwing’s behalf. What in Primus’ name could terrify someone as powerful as Blitzwing?

As the minutes went by and Blitzwing’s faces spun on their regular, slow intervals, Bumblebee let his processor wander. He knew he should be getting rest, taking advantage of the warehouse’s protection, but he was too scared for what Blitzwing might be feeling. What was he thinking about? What was scaring him so much that he couldn’t even find a suitable face to settle on?

It didn’t take long for Blitzwing to start spinning out of control, the warehouse overflowing with an audial-shattering chorus of _whirr, whirr, whirr._ Bumblebee didn’t hesitate to stand back up once again, strolling confidently over to Blitzwing and smacking an open servo across his leg. Blitzwing’s frame jolted, his optics snapping wide open as his face locked on blue.

Bumblebee took one look at Blitzwing’s fearful expression and decided to go against his better judgement, taking one of Blitzwing’s hands in his own and squeezing it hard. Blitzwing’s face morphed from distressed to confused in an instant, and he narrowed his optics slightly.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice breaking almost imperceptibly.

“Look, I don’t wanna pressure you,” Bumblebee said, cutting right to the chase. keeping his voice as stern as possible. “But you keep waking up looking absolutely freaked to death, and I’m worried about you, okay? And I wanna know what’s going on. If you really, _really_ don’t want to talk about it, tell me and I’ll shut up about it forever, I swear. But I—I’m worried. And if I can help at all, even if that’s just by listening, I can do that. Really! I can talk a lot, but I can also shut up when I have to. And you heard how dumb some of my stories were, I promise on my spark, I won’t judge you. I have zero room for judgement in this little chassis.”

Bumblebee forced himself to stop rambling and stared Blitzwing in the face, trying to look firm and only succeeding in looking nervous. Blitzwing stared right back, his expression completely unreadable, leaving them in a very long, pregnant silence.

“I-I mean—you don’t have to,” Bumblebee continued sheepishly as the pause stretched for far longer than what was comfortable. “If you really don’t want to, I’m not going to force you, I just—”

“It’s about Megatron.”

Bumblebee blinked in surprise, letting go to Blitzwing’s hand. Blitzwing had his gaze averted, crimson optics locked on his knees, his digits twisting around as though he’d said something shameful.

“M-Megatron?” Bumblebee repeated. “I mean—I’m not surprised, I just—he is scary and all, but…”

Bumblebee sat back, facing Blitzwing and pulling his knees to his chest, zipping an invisible zipper across his lips shut. Blitzwing glanced at him with the faintest hint of a smile passing over his face before looking back down at the ground again.

“I suppose there’s… no harm in telling you,” Blitzwing said quietly. “Given that once this is over, I doubt I’ll ever speak to you again.”

Bumblebee tried not to focus on how much that stung and simply nodded. “Go ahead,” he said softly. “Pinky promise I won’t judge you.”

He held out a pinky, and Blitzwing analyzed it for a moment, still looking torn. It took a while before he intertwined his much larger pinky amongst Bumblebee’s, squeezing it just slightly.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all ready for a mountain of headcanons? gear up.

_There was nothing better than crashing into battle at Mach 2, the feeling of his servos wrapping around the helms of Autobots as he smashed them against the ground, ripping them apart until their carcasses resembled little more than piles of wiring and steaming metal. Blitzwing had one goal, and that was burying his hands through the plating of Autobots until his fingertips were permanently stained pink._

_He didn’t even hear Megatron storming up behind him, though he did feel the massive servo gripping the back of his neck and throwing him to the ground. Megatron’s snarl was commonplace, at least for Blitzwing, and he hadn’t been phased by it in a long time._

_“What’s wrong, my Lord?” Blitzwing said, smirking widely, holding up his drenched hands in a false sign of surrender. “I got them, didn’t I?”_

_“You did,” Megatron snarled. “Outside of my orders. How many times do I have to tell you to listen to what I tell you?”_

_“Well, Starscream has yet to listen to you once, and he’s your second,” Blitzwing said smugly. “Just trying to climb the ranks, boss, that’s all.”_

_Megatron leered for a few more moments before grabbing onto one of Blitzwing’s wings, tugging on it harshly. Blitzwing yelled in anger, swinging a pede toward Megatron._

_“Knock that off!” he shouted. “Are you trying to destroy your air force?”_

_“You’re useless on my air force,” Megatron hissed. “You get results, but not a single one is a result I’m interested in. Fix it or I will fix it for you.”_

_Megatron flung Blitzwing at the ground and stormed off without another word. Blitzwing snarled quietly and grabbed at his now-dented wing. He was far more armored than the other jets on the force, that was true, but Megatron’s grip was apparently relentless._

_Oh well. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten told off._

* * *

_The medbay was always awkward. The medics had stopped asking Blitzwing where his injuries had come from, given that he showed up with damage from in-fighting more than anyone else in the Decepticons. And he brought more people in, as well. It wasn’t worth noting down, especially with Megatron’s recent decision to check all the medical records._

_Not that anyone would mind throwing Blitzwing under the bus. He wasn’t exactly popular, but he was too good at Autobot slaying for anyone to want to cross him._

_Megatron was in the medbay that day, discussing something with Blackarachnia. She was nodding, expression firm and interested, her disgusting organic optics sliding over to Blitzwing every so often. He only vaguely wondered why._

* * *

_Blitzwing knew he shouldn’t be breaking ranks again. but he couldn’t resist. A stray Autobot was injured near the edge of the battlefield, and he couldn’t help but rush over and fire his blaster right at the fallen soldier’s shoulder. He screeched in agony. Blitzwing cackled. Megatron shouted at him. Blitzwing ignored him._

_Megatron was in the medbay again later that day, talking to Blackarachnia. Blackarachnia was smiling. Blitzwing ignored her too._

* * *

“Wait, wait, wait. Hold up a second. You said ‘jet.’ But not ‘tank.’”

“Correct.”

“Were you not forged as a triple changer?”

“No.”

“Seriously? What happened?”

“That’s the point of this story. Are you going to let me continue?”

“I—yeah. Sorry. Right. Keep going.”

* * *

_Blitzwing didn’t remember being knocked out. And he certainly didn’t remember his arms and legs being strapped down, but when he came to, he was staring at a blindingly white ceiling, and everything in his frame ached more than it ever had. Not just because of the stasis cuffs pinning him to whatever berth he was pinned to, no, it was more than that. Every pain sensor in his frame was lighting up, warnings coating his HUD, all sorts of errors and lines of code that the didn’t recognize. He hadn’t seen half of these things before._

_He tugged on his arms weakly, but was irritated to find that he must be rather heavily sedated. Irritated, but not angry. The lack of emotion made him feel awkward. Normally he’d be furious at being restrained—it was one of his least favorite sensations, after all. He could feel anger, bubbling somewhere down in his tanks, but it wouldn’t reach his processor. There was some sort of strange disconnect, leaving him feeling raw, naked, empty, cold. Where was his trademark anger, his impulsiveness, the things that got him in trouble so frequently?_

_He strained a bit harder against his restraints before groaning in pain. Everything hurt. Why did everything hurt? His legs felt stiff, chunky, oversized, his chassis heavy and tight as if it was about to burst. He wanted to hit something. Or, rather, he wanted to want to hit something. His processor throbbed any time he thought about it too much._

_Blurry faces appeared over him, both wearing smirks, four sets of red optics in two faces. Blitzwing could only vaguely make out the features, but the voices were unmistakable._

_“Impressive,” Megatron drawled. “The monocular is an interesting touch.”_

_The what? Blitzwing tried to ask, but all that he managed was a pained groan. His processor felt like it was about to implode, and his side was burning as if it was on fire._

_“Oh, that?” Blackarachnia sounded incredibly pleased with herself. “That was a bit of a personal touch, actually. You know how these experiments go, circuits short out, things get messed up. But that just gives more opportunity to try new things. It has a lot of options, he’ll get used to it eventually. Fifty times magnification should provide a tactical advantage.”_

_“Excellent.”_

_Blitzwing groaned again, the sound coming out rather flimsy and pathetic. Megatron met his optics, a smirk widening on his face._

_“Welcome back, Blitzwing,” he said calmly. “I did warn you.”_

_“About… what?” Blitzwing managed._

_Megatron simply chuckled and continued ignoring him. The only thing Blitzwing would make out were his optics, bright and scarlet and piercing. He felt nerves bubbling deep in his processor, but it wouldn’t come to the forefront. What was going on?_

_“And his t-cog?”_

_“Slightly unstable at first, but a splash of Quintesson CNA and it started working just fine.”_

_“Quintesson… interesting.”_

_“I thought it’d be an interesting touch. Cybertronian t-cogs don’t support three modes, so I had to improvise. But I think it worked out well, don’tcha think?_

_“Quite.”_

_Blitzwing whimpered quietly and forced his aching helm to turn, trying to examine his arms. They looked the same as always. What were they talking about?_

_“B-Blackarachnia… what’s… going on?” he choked out, his voice unfamiliar and flat against his audials, sending icy shivers down his spinal strut._

_She rolled her many optics and took a step toward Blitzwing, pushing his helm up, and he nearly blacked out at the sudden movement. He clung to consciousness with every shred of energy he had, his optics focusing strangely on his chest, tracing down to his legs. Something looked wrong. They were bigger, darker, bulkier, searing with pain._

_“W-what is that?” Blitzwing asked shakily._

_Blackarachnia grinned and pushed Blitzwing’s helm farther up—stars exploded in Blitzwing’s vision as he struggled to keep his optics focused._

_“Your fun new kibble,” she said pleasantly._

_“New… kibble?”_

_He managed to focus on his legs enough to determine what Blackarachnia was talking about, and he felt sick almost immediately upon seeing it. His legs were no longer plated with the armor that protected his jet mode, but were instead lined with thick treads. Tank treads. Blitzwing nearly purged at the sight, looking at Blackarachnia as he felt anger start to trickle into his processor._

_“You… made me… into a grounder?”_

_“Of course not, idiot. Why would I do that?”_

_“Then what did you do?!”_

_Blackarachnia shrugged. “What Lord Megatron told me to do,” she said simply._

_Blitzwing was suddenly blinded by rage, and he shrieked in pain as his face began to burn, a thousand molten knives of agony digging into every seam. He wrenched his arms upwards and out of the stasis cuffs with an audial-splitting screech, grabbing onto his face, screaming out every ounce of fury and pain bubbled to the surface uncontrollably. Blackarachnia stepped back quickly, concern written all over her face._

_“Uh, Lord Megatron? Something’s wrong—”_

_All he could feel was anger. Blitzwing leaned up and grabbed onto the cuffs on his legs, ripping them free and doing the first thing he could think of: attacking Blackarachnia. He needed energon on his hands. He needed her to hurt like he was hurting._

_He lunged, and a medic ran into his path with his servos raised, a syringe in his hand and soaring through the air toward Blitzwing’s chest. Blitzwing grabbed it, snarling, frothing at the mouth, lifting the medic up and slamming him down ferociously. The medic screamed as his arm ripped from its socket, and Blitzwing stomped on his helm before turning to Blackarachnia once again._

_“Tell me what you did!”_

_She stared, slack-jawed, before turning and running from the lab. Blitzwing growled, grabbing another medic that had come his way and ripping him in half at the waist, discarding his body onto the floor. Blitzwing’s face seared again as pure amusement washed over him, and he laughed wildly and bit down on a medic’s helm, gnawing at it until it was completely unrecognizable as a face. The sight only made him laugh louder, harder, the hallways echoing with wicked cackling as he ran forward._

_“Blackarachnia!” he sang, terrifyingly excited to disembowel her. “Are you playing hide and seek? I bet I’ll win!”_

_He didn’t even know whose helm he was grabbing onto, simply that the mech was in his way, and Blitzwing had no reservations about chomping down on his arm, feeling oddly sharp dentae slice into the armor. Had she filed his dentae into points? He was never able to use his jaw as a weapon before, but now, the temptation was overwhelming. He sank his teeth into the mech’s neck, energon squirting out across his mouth, coating his glossa. It tasted good, like metal and electricity and victory._

_He laughed even harder. He didn’t want to stop laughing. Killing was fun, it was exciting, why wouldn’t he be laughing?_

_“Blackarachnia!” he called again, ripping the door from a supply closet and hurling it down the hall. “Are you in there? Come out, come out, wherever you are!”_

_This game was getting boring. His face burned as if coated in acid, dizziness making his vision blur, fury raging to the surface of his processor. He punched the wall next to the supply closet, ignoring how it made his knuckles ache._

_“Come out and face me, you cowardice insect!” Blitzwing bellowed. “You will—”_

_Blitzwing was suddenly cut off as large black digits wrapped around his helm, uprooting Blitzwing and slamming him to the ground with a sickening crunch. Blitzwing yelled loudly, more pain piling onto what was already igniting his entire frame, errors coating his HUD so quickly that they nearly obstructed his vision._

_Megatron was standing over Blitzwing again, red optics looking down at him coldly. His massive pede stomped on Blitzwing’s chest, pinning him to the floor, and struggled viciously, spitting and kicking with all of his strength to no avail. Megatron simply stared down at him, pressing his pede down hard._

_“Blackarachnia,” he said darkly. “Sedate him.”_

_A massive spider dropped from the ceiling and transformed into Blackarachnia, a syringe appearing from her subspace just seconds before the tip of the needle disappeared into Blitzwing’s leg. He snarled and fought as hard as he could, even as his painful frame started to feel unbelievably warm and heavy, a blanket of revolting tranquility settling on his processor. He panted hard, every breath labored, whimpering as his anger bled away against his will and explosions of pain scorched across his faceplates._

_“Interesting,” Megatron said, staring at Blitzwing with unfazed crimson optics. “I’ve never seen anything quite like that before.”_

_“Probably a side effect of the Quintesson CNA. Unintended, but fascinating,” Blackarachnia said, her voice bright with excitement. “I wonder if that means there’s a correlation between the faces and the alt modes. Maybe his t-cog is somehow connected to his processor.”_

_“Study him at your leisure,” Megatron said._

_“Megatron,” Blitzwing gasped, his voice terribly flat, the rage that he so craved boiling just out of reach. “Please—what’s wrong with me?”_

_“I told you to stop being such a loose cannon on the battlefield. And you ignored my direct orders,” Megatron said, his tone almost smug. “So I allowed Blackarachnia to… play with you. Attempt to stomp out that disobedient, overly violent streak of yours. And fortunately for us, she seemed to be at least mildly successful.”_

_Megatron removed his pede from Blitzwing’s chest, leaning down toward his face, staring as if curious about what he was looking at. “You needed this,” he said, unbearably soothing. “You’re a liability. But you are a very, very powerful liability. Some simple modifications was all you needed to become what you should have been all along.”_

_Megatron’s words were always seductive, his tone enticing, but Blitzwing knew that he was wrong. He shouldn’t be like this. He wouldn’t hurt this badly if this was normal. He shook his helm as much as he could, frame shaking._

_“I don’t want it,” Blitzwing choked out. “Please. I’ll listen to you, I don’t want to be like this, I don’t want treads on my legs. It hurts, Lord Megatron, I—”_

_“It’s a bit late now, three-face,” Blackarachnia said snidely. “You’re a miracle of science! You should be grateful.”_

_“Th-three face?”_

_“Megatron requested that I give you two alt modes,” Blackarachnia said. “It’s a project I’ve been working on, making a triple changer. But all of my other test subjects didn’t have frames strong enough to handle such massive changes, and their t-cogs always seemed to get deep fried. Then you came long, and the armored jet mode gave me an idea: tank and jet modes! I tried adding a strain of Quintesson to your CNA, and that stabilized your t-cog. So congrats, you’re Cybertron’s first triple changer. And you’re a freak, too. Welcome to the club.”_

_Blitzwing stared at Blackarachnia, appalled, his tanks rolling with a need to purge. “I—I don’t…” Words weren’t coming to him. He drew a sharp breath and tried again. “I don’t—I don’t want two alt modes!”_

_“Blitzwing,” Megatron said, his voice violent and soothing all at once. “This isn’t about what you want. It’s about what you deserve. There was too much power in that jet frame of yours, too much potential. We’re only helping you realize it to its fullest extent.”_

_“I—”_

_“But you need to work on your self control,” Megatron continued, lifting Blitzwing’s limp frame from the ground and hoisting him across his shoulder. “I understand you must be very confused and stressed.”_

_“I—”_

_“We’ve arranged a training room for you on the Nemesis. And you will train in there until you learn to listen to orders. You did say before that you would listen to me, did you not?”_

_“I—”_

_“You’re far too unpredictable. We’ve given you some degree of predictability. Learn to use it to your advantage or you will not be a part of this force anymore.”_

_Megatron opened a door and tossed Blitzwing onto the floor, where he lay groaning, trying to push himself up. Everything hurt so badly, his frame felt swollen and distended and raw, why did it have to hurt so much?_

_“Good luck, Blitzwing,” Megatron said with a nasty smirk lifting one corner of his lips. “I do hope we see you again soon.”_

_“Wait,” Blitzwing begged, trying to drag himself toward the door. “I don’t know—what do you mean?”_

_The door slammed shut, and Blitzwing felt his face burn again as he screamed, slamming his fists into the ground over and over, hoping he could punch his way out._

* * *

“Holy slag.”

“What?”

“Megatron did that?”

“Technically speaking, Blackarachnia did it. But it was Megatron’s orders, yes.”

“And it… used to hurt when your faces switched?”

“Severely. It was incredibly unnatural, very different from my natural frame.”

“...Yikes.”

“Eloquently stated.”

“Oh, shut up. Is that… the end of the story?”

“Not quite.”

* * *

_Two weeks. Blitzwing spent two weeks in that room, endless battle simulations running as his frame ached more and more, the pain never quite ebbing away completely. Megatron stopped in every so often with a cold barrel of oil, sipping it and ensuring that not a drop reached Blitzwing._

_Blitzwing’s tanks screamed for fuel, but he received none. Megatron’s red optics only leered from a distance, a self-satisfied sneer on his face._

_It took quite some time for Blitzwing to figure out what exactly was wrong with him. The burning that constantly plagued his faceplates was from them shifting, moving, changing when his mood did. It was almost uncontrollable: rage overcame him too easily, the urge to laugh at the absurdity of his predicament, only comfortable with the stagnance that came along with one of the faces. He tried to keep himself calm, tried to make himself feel numb, to clear his processor so he could analyze._

_He’d always been able to do that. But with one face prominent, it was much easier._

_The room was insufferably hot. Ventilation was nonexistent, the entire arena sealed off from any fresh air. Blitzwing rarely rested, the room far too stuffy for him to manage any rest. It was only on a particularly painful night when he learned that the cannons welded to his back could shoot ice, and the relief was instantaneous._

_Had he known how, he would have cried with joy._

_He tried so hard to focus, to control what he was feeling, to project his strengths onto the simulated attackers that never stopped coming for him. But it was so easy to break his own ranks, to let the frustration and pain and the unbearable heat flood his thoughts. Megatron was displeased._

_“Please,” Blitzwing wheezed as he lay on the ground, under Megatron’s pede once again, his multiple engines screeching from overuse. “It’s so hot—please, just let me out.”_

_“No,” Megatron said shortly. “You’re not ready yet.”_

_“I’m trying! I just can’t focus! It’s too hot, I’m exhausted, I’m starving. How can you expect me to fight if I can barely stand up?”_

_“Learn to adapt, then.”_

_“Lord Megatron—”_

_Megatron leaned down with a snarl, optics piercing through Blitzwing, and he flinched, averting his gaze._

_“You are staying in this room until you get yourself under control,” Megatron said, his voice a low and horribly calm purr._

_“I can’t! I can’t control it! You made me so I can’t control any of it!”_

_Megatron sneered. “Figure it out, then,” he said. “You have potential. You could be on my personal crew someday. Prove it to me or this door stays locked, Blitzwing.”_

_“Lord Megatron, please—!”_

_The door shut once again. The red glow of Megatron’s optics stained Blitzwing’s vision as he screamed, lunging toward one of the simulations and ripping it clumsily to shreds. It was the only thing that truly made him feel better._

* * *

_Three weeks. Blitzwing focused on the enemy before him, a massive beast of a mech that loomed over him, club in hand._

_He kept his processor calm as he blasted ice at the ground. The mech slipped as he tried to take a step forward. Blitzwing leapt up, adopting his jet mode, soaring across the room and forcing rage to the surface. Fire rained from his cannons, igniting the club, and the mech stumbled in surprise. Blitzwing laughed as he pounced onto his helm, digging his fingers and his dentae into the mech’s helm. He didn’t stop tearing away at the armor until the sour taste of inductor’s popped against his glossa. The mech fell, and Blitzwing dropped next to it gracefully, panting and trying to catch his breath._

_The door opened, and Megatron walked in. Blitzwing flinched, terrified for whatever punishment may be coming. But Megatron simply held out a cool barrel of oil, wearing a nasty but genuine grin._

_“About time, Blitzwing,” he said coldly. “Come with me.”_

_Blitzwing hesitated, straightening himself up nervously, practically drooling at the sight of cold fuel just meters away from him. He was well into his emergency reserves at this point, nearing system failures. His frame ached violently, every joint sore and cramped, his HUD drenched with errors, his face burning dully and constantly. Megatron chuckled at his indecision._

_“It’s alright,” he said reassuringly. “I just watched that fight. You’re ready.”_

_Blitzwing didn’t even care if it was a trick anymore. He rushed forward, feeling his grin stretch impossibly wide as he grabbed the barrel and sucked down the oil as fast as he could managed._

_“See?” Megatron said. “Was that so hard?”_

_It was. Blitzwing felt as if his frame was seconds from crumbling into shrapnel. His cannons were spitting out steam almost constantly, his legs trembling weakly, every breath tasting like energon and smoke and gunpowder. But he shook his helm, cold fear washing over him, keeping his optics away from the scarlet slits that seemed to stare right at his spark._

_“No,” he murmured. “It wasn’t.”_

_“That’s what I thought,” Megatron said. “Come, then. You should be introduced to my crew. They will be your new teammates after all.”_

* * *

_They all stared at him. Blitzwing felt his tanks churn as soon as he went to the bridge of the Nemesis. Blackarachnia looked quite pleased with herself as she watched Blitzwing’s faces spin from one to the other, and Blitzwing was rather glad that he’d figured out how to stop grimacing when it happened._

_Starscream made a point to sneer at Blitzwing, snickering at him every time his faces swapped out. Blitzwing only barely managed not to wring his skinny Seeker neck. Lugnut didn’t seem thrilled that Megatron had a new pride and joy, and Blitzwing often caught him whispering to Blackarachnia when he assumed Blitzwing was looking the other way._

_He didn’t say anything about it. The word “freak” crossed his audials far more often than Blitzwing would have liked, but no one could deny that he was a phenomenal addition to the ranks. The Autobots were frequently overwhelmed by the mere sight of a tank dropping from the sky at the speed of sound, and within mere years, Blitzwing was respected by all those he commanded._

_Megatron’s presence always loomed. Blitzwing often woke up in the middle of the night shaking violently, his frame overheated despite the temperature being as low as allowed._

_He was more powerful and more adaptive than any Decepticon on the fore. Two alt modes, a miracle of technology and biology, but three faces that he wore as a brand. Everyone was reminded constantly that he was different, that he was wrong, that he was a freak. Megatron said this was his true form, that this was what he was meant to be. But his spark was almost constantly unsettled, relenting the frame that housed it._

_Blitzwing learned to tolerate himself, to make the pain of movement go away. And he did a fantastic job at it. But he still couldn’t decide if he was more grateful to Megatron or more afraid._

* * *

Bumblebee found himself at a loss for words once Blitzwing finally fell silent, his optics downcast as if ashamed. He reset his vocalizer nervously and tried to say something comforting, anything that might make Blitzwing feel better.

“Sorry,” he managed after a pause.

Surprisingly, Blitzwing chuckled, albeit rather dryly. “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “I was incompetent. Megatron simply… helped me.”

“In, like, the worst way imaginable!”

“Be that as it may, I’ve learned to become rather comfortable with the changes,” Blitzwing said with a small shrug. “It may be rather annoying to have my emotions constantly projected to the world, but the positives outweigh the negatives.”

Bumblebee had his doubts, especially since Blitzwing had yet to lift his gaze, and he did the first thing he could think of—he reached out and wrapped a servo tightly around Blitzwing’s, giving it a small squeeze.

“Sorry for calling you a freak,” he said meekly.

Blitzwing finally raised his optics, looking rather surprised. “Don’t be,” he said. 

“No, I am. Really. I mean it. It was really mean.”

“I’m used to it.”

Bumblebee looked down at his hand nervously before retracting it, his spark twitching when he saw Blitzwing’s digits shift as if they didn’t want to let go. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with being a freak,” he tried.

Blitzwing scoffed. “The connotations are overwhelmingly negative,” he said flatly.

“For now, yeah,” Bumblebee said, grinning a little bit. “Reclaim that word! You _are_ a freak. Own it. You’re great at being a freak. You’re the best freak around.”

Bumblebee smiled even wider when the glimmer of an amused smirk passed over Blitzwing’s face, disappearing as fast as it had appeared.

“Thank you,” Blitzwing said quietly.

Bumblebee grinned, reaching a hand out again before chickening out and giving Blitzwing a small fist bump. “Anytime, freak.”

* * *

Blitzwing wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep, but when he woke up, he was surprised to see grey sunlight streaming in through the fogged, moldy windows of the warehouse. Bumblebee was fast asleep against his leg, a tiny grin glowing on his face, one servo on top of Blitzwing’s leg.

He’d slept all the way through the night, Blitzwing realized. Both of them had. 

Blitzwing looked down at Bumblebee and the small yellow servo against his thigh, surprised to feel an odd tremble in his spark. So talking about his past had been helpful after all. Bumblebee’s reaction was unexpected—Blitzwing had been anticipating mockery, burning questions about why Blitzwing was complaining about something so stupid, but Bumblebee had taken him seriously. Listened to him with eager optics, not interrupting, only offering audials.

It was nice to be listened to. Blitzwing stared at Bumblebee’s hand for a little while longer, wondering why such a simple gesture such as a hand grab had been so reassuring. Bumblebee wasn’t exactly a therapeutic bot when it came to demeanour, but Blitzwing felt comforted by him nonetheless.

How odd.


	16. Chapter 16

Leaving the warehouse was one of the most difficult things Bumblebee had ever convinced himself to do, especially after such a good night of rest.

The sleet raining from the low-hanging clouds certainly didn’t help, either.

“Can’t we just wait another day or so before leaving?” Bumblebee said uncertainly. “It’s _freezing._ One more day won’t kill us, right?”

Blitzwing sighed, holding a hand out and letting the tiny beads of ice bounce from the metal. “What’s your capacity at?” he asked.

“Uh…” That was a question Bumblebee did not want to answer, and he looked up at Blitzwing with a sheepish grin. “About… thirty percent.”

“Liar.”

“Twenty five?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Bumblebee sighed. “Fine, it’s at, like, fifteen,” he admitted with a huff. “But if we just sit still, you know, hang out, relax, talk, that sorta thing? We’ll be fine for a day! Come on, please?”

The idea was oddly tempting, and Bumblebee found a large part of his processor hoping that Blitzwing would comply. Breaking down Blitzwing’s walls last night was not an event that Bumblebee wanted to leave behind in this warehouse. There was so much to the triple changer that Bumblebee wanted to unravel, so many questions he wanted answers to, endless stories he wanted to hear. For once in his life, he wanted to listen instead of talk, and he tried to push aside how strange of a concept that was.

Especially considering that the mech he wanted to talk to was a Decepticon. 

“No,” Blitzwing said, interrupting Bumblebee’s confused train of thought. “We can’t risk running out of fuel. Especially given how much of a gas guzzler you are.”

“It’s not _that_ bad!” Bumblebee said indignantly, folding his arms over his chest and sticking out his lower lip into a pout. “As if yours are any worse! If we’re getting fuel, we’re getting it for you.”

Blitzwing sighed, his faceplates twitching in irritation, though a smile quirked at one corner of his mouth.

“You’re far too easy to convince,” he said slyly.

Bumblebee paused as Blitzwing started walking. “Hey, what do you mean?” he asked, jogging after Blitzwing. “What do you mean? Get back here!”

“Hush and walk.”

“I’m not easy to convince!”

“Of course you’re not. Which is why we’re walking toward fuel now even though you didn’t want to.”

Bumblebee huffed, trying to kick the back of Blitzwing’s pedes when they lifted from the dirt. “Shut up,” he grumbled.

* * *

It only took a few hours of walking for Bumblebee and Blitzwing to stumble across a road, something neither of them had seen in what felt like ages. Bumblebee ran onto it as soon as he saw it, disappointed to see that it was coated in gravel instead of asphalt, but it would do. He laughed and fell onto the ground, rolling around in the jagged rocks.

“Oh, man, this is awesome,” he said wistfully, digging his servos into the dirt and throwing it on top of himself.

Blitzwing raised a brow at him. “It’s a gravel road,” he said flatly. “What’s the big deal?”

“It means we’re getting closer!” Bumblebee said, absolutely elated. “If my tires weren’t all blown out, I’d be driving on this thing until we made it all the way to Detroit.”

“We’re still in the woods,” Blitzwing said pointedly, sounding rather amused at Bumblebee’s excitement. “And if we’re approaching civilization, that means we have to take much closer care not to be caught by humans.”

“Aw, come on, Blitzbrain,” Bumblebee whined. “Why do you always have to be right? It’s a total buzzkill.”

“Pardon me. I forgot that you don’t think logically.”

Bumblebee snickered, lifting up a handful of gravel and chucking it in Blitzwing’s direction. “I do, sometimes, believe it or not,” he said, smirking. “But I just don’t bother because you take care of it for me.”

“Lucky me,” Blitzwing said dryly.

Bumblebee giggled and started rolling down the road. “Come on, loser,” he called, ignoring the fact that he was scuffing the hell out of his armor, digging scratches into the paint. “If there’s a road, there are cars. And if there are cars, there is oil!”

“And humans,” Blitzwing said pointedly, following Bumblebee down the road. “Which we need to avoid.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Bumblebee said. “I can still transform even if I can’t drive. If we see any humans, just duck behind a tree or something.”

“I’m thirty feet tall, Bumblebee.”

“...Duck behind a really tall tree, then?”

_Whirr._ Bumblebee looked up as Blitzwing’s face switched to red, and he realized it’d actually been quite a while since Blitzwing’s faces had shifted. Though he didn’t get a chance to ask why, given that Blitzwing limped toward Bumblebee, visor flashing threateningly.

“You’re a moron,” he snarled.

Bumblebee paused his rolling to shrug. “I thought we’ve established that by now,” he said with a grin. “Now come on. We have fuel to find.”

* * *

Blitzwing was exhausted with the hunt for fuel. It seemed like it had been ages since he’d had anything in his tanks at all, and with them dipping to a dangerously low 4%, it took all of his self control not to panic. Though he was glad that Bumblebee was at least compliant in their search, even though he insisted upon rolling down the road like an absolute buffoon.

“How long are you going to keep doing that?” Blitzwing asked dryly as Bumblebee whacked into the tenth large rock and hissed in pain.

“Until I finally remember what it’s like to not be walking in mud,” Bumblebee answered, seeming completely content with destroying his finish.

Blitzwing couldn’t help but chuckle quietly. Bumblebee’s excitability about even the most minor things, something so simple as a road, was oddly endearing. Stupid, of course, for him to be flopping around in it, but Blitzwing could hardly bring himself to tell the little Autobot to stop. It had been a while since Bumblebee had been in a genuinely good mood, and the feeling was borderline infectious. Blitzwing even joined him in his thrashing for a little bit, which was fun while it lasted, though it did leave both of them rather grumpy as they picked tiny rocks from the seams of their armor.

Finally on his pedes again, Bumblebee giggled a bit. “That was fun,” he said breathlessly. “I almost forgot how great roads are.”

Blitzwing’s giddy cheerfulness faded into a flat chill, and he shrugged as he flicked a lump of gravel from his frame. “It completely ruined our paint,” he said.

“So what?” Bumblebee retorted. “Who’s looking at us?”

Blitzwing shrugged again, willing to admit that Bumblebee did at least have a point. He leaned forward to brush a particularly large smudge of dust from Bumblebee’s back, twitching a little when Bumblebee’s big, bright optics turned to meet his.

“What?” Bumblebee asked.

“Nothing,” Blitzwing said quickly. “There was just some… dust.”

Bumblebee wore a strange expression for a moment that made Blitzwing’s empty tanks feel tight, and the Autobot whirled around rather quickly before Blitzwing could fully analyze his face.

“Right,” Bumblebee said. “Keep an optic out for any cars or buildings, will you? It’s pretty cold, so I doubt anyone will be going on joy rides or anything, but you never know.”

“Will do,” Blitzwing said, glad to be behind Bumblebee. Ever since last night, he was finding it hard to look away from Bumblebee’s hands, the ones that had been so soft against his own.

Blitzwing had never told anyone about his history. The only ones that knew were Megatron, Blackarachnia, and now Bumblebee. The idea of the story possibly reaching the Autobots hadn’t even passed Blitzwing’s processor, and he reached forward to tap Bumblebee’s shoulder gently.

“Bumblebee?”

“Yo.”

“Don’t tell anyone about… what I told you last night.”

Bumblebee paused his walking for a moment to look up at Blitzwing, clearly puzzled. “Why not?” he asked.

Blitzwing hated not having answers, but he couldn’t manage anything other than a shrug. “I just don’t want anyone but you knowing,” he muttered.

There it was again, that strange, unreadable expression. Blitzwing tried to place it, but it wasn’t one he had ever seen before. There were tangles of confusion, wonder, sadness, and something else that Blitzwing had never seen in his life. What was that? 

But it faded rather quickly as Bumblebee chuckled, one of his servos reaching out to bump playfully against Blitzwing’s hip.

“Don’t get your pistons in a bundle,” Bumblebee said. “I wasn’t gonna. Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

Blitzwing nodded, relieved. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Don’t mention it,” Bumblebee said. “Now stop moping and get that crazy monocular thingy on the lookout for oil. I’m starving. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that photo—photo—photosyn—photosynthetics?”

“Photosynthesis.”

“Yeah, that one! Wouldn’t it be cool if we could do that? Just lay in the sun for a few hours and be ready to run around for a week? I’d love to be able to do that. I could be refueling, sitting on the couch, playing video games, and watching TV all at once. That’s my ideal existence. Do you think anyone’s been working on that back home? Solar power? Humans do that, it’s wild, they use these big panels…”

Blitzwing found himself grinning as Bumblebee’s chatter went on and on, his topics changing so rapidly that most sane mechs wouldn’t even dare trying to keep up. He really was starting to enjoy the sound of talking over long, aching silences, pleasant though the silence was. Seeing Bumblebee upbeat was, for some reason, a whole lot better.

* * *

Bumblebee’s tanks were at a measly 11% when they finally happened upon a gift that must’ve come from Primus above—a gas station. A run-down, extremely empty gas station, but a gas station nonetheless. Bumblebee felt his tanks whine with need as he looked at the fuel pumps, and he turned around to grin at Blitzwing.

“Jackpot,” he said, his grin quickly fading when he saw that state Blitzwing was in. He looked beyond exhausted, his limp heavier than it had been in days, his whole frame sagging as if gravity had suddenly tripled in magnitude. Bumblebee rushed over to him, glaring accusingly as he pointed at the ground.

“What’s the matter with you?” he said, unable to keep the nervousness from his voice. “Are you okay?”

Blitzwing nodded, grimacing slightly. “I’m fine,” he said in a very strained tone.

“As if!” Bumblebee said. “Tell me what’s up. Do you need repairs?”

Blitzwing shook his helm slowly. “I’m on emergency reserves,” he said through gritted dentae. “So if you’d—”

“You _idiot!_ ” Bumblebee snapped, bonking Blitzwing’s helm with his fist. “You should’ve told me!”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Blitzwing said with a roll of the optics. “But if you’d—”

“ _Bother_ me? By telling me you’re practically hours away from going offline?! You’re a moron! Tell me these things, okay? We’re in this together, you absolute numbskull.”

Blitzwing growled, his face shifting to the side a few inches as if to spin before snapping back into place. “I will,” he said shortly. “As I was saying, if you’d be so kind as to go and get fuel, and get it fast, it would be very much appreciated.”

Bumblebee nodded without hesitation, his frame practically vibrating with nerves. It had been a long time since he’d transformed, and the feeling of being in his alt-mode was lovely, though the feeling of his rims scraping and banging against the gravel absolutely was not.

It wasn’t until Bumblebee had pulled up to one of the gas pumps that he realized—he’d never been to a gas station before. Professor Sumdac had always brought fuel for the Autobots, ensuring that they didn’t have to go out in public more than necessary. 

_You got this_ , Bumblebee thought firmly. _You’ve seen TV. You just pull up, get out of the vehicle, pump the gas, then pay for it. Easy._

After about ten seconds of sitting at the gas pump, Bumblebee realized the flaw in his plan. _Slag_ , he thought. _I can’t get out of me. Or pay. Okay, just stay cool. It’s fine. Just wait for someone to come out, and you’ll be fine._

Fifteen achingly long minutes passed before Bumblebee shifted his mirrors around, wondering if maybe this gas station was abandoned. Nobody had come out to see if he was okay, possibly put off by his popped tires and scuffed paint, and he momentarily cursed himself for ruining his finish. He probably looked like he was straight from the slums of Cybertron, not like the humans would know what that looked like.

He settled on honking his horn loudly a few times, relieved when he saw a very confused middle-aged man appear amongst the faded signs in the gas station. He honked again, and the man came out, raising a brow.

“You alright out here, dude?”

Bumblebee was relieved that he couldn’t pull any faces, because this human smelled awful, like some kind of terrible combination of burnt rubber, herbs, and skunks. He tried to look as much like a normal car as he could.

“Yes, sir,” he said as professionally as possible. “I would like some gasoline, sir.”

“Two fifty a gallon.”

“Two… uh… do you take rain checks?”

The guy snorted, tapping on Bumblebee’s driver’s side window.

“Not really, no,” he said. “Cash, check, or card?”

“Um…”

Bumblebee panicked a little bit, trying to remember what humans did on TV when they bought gas. Could he do this without money? He recalled a movie he’d seen once about some runaway teenager and opted to try that approach.

“Listen,” he said as earnestly as possible. “My tires are flat, I’ve got nowhere to go, and my parents kicked me out. I don’t have any money, but I really need, like, forty gallons of gas.”

“In a little car like this? _Forty_ gallons?”

“I’m not—uh—my _car_ isn’t little! And yes. I… modified it.”

“Not any mod I’ve ever heard of. That’s bigger than a semi tank.”

“I just need gas. Please? Give me a serv—hand here.”

The man seemed to contemplate the idea for a little bit before sighing, tapping Bumblebee’s roof sympathetically.

“You hiding from the cops or somethin’? Is that why you’re keeping your window up?”

“...Uh huh”

“I feel that. Just because I’m bored and stoned out of my mind, I’ll help you out. Don’t tell my boss.”

The guy turned around and punched some numbers into the pump, and Bumblebee tried not to wonder why this poor guy had gotten pelted with rocks or whatever ‘stoned’ meant. It was a strange feeling, having a human open his gas cap and stick a nozzle directly into his fuel tank, but Bumblebee could have cried at how wonderful it was to have fresh, cool gasoline flooding his system. He waited patiently, watching the warnings disappear from his HUD, and once he was at maximum capacity, he felt the nozzle exit his tank with a weird jiggle. 

“That’s about twenty right there,” the human said. “Big tank you got there. Let me grab some cans for you, keep some in your trunk. You’re gonna need it, all the way out here in a sporty ride like this.”

“Thanks. Really.”

The man walked out of Bumblebee’s line of sight, returning a few minutes later and filling some large red canisters.

“So, what brings you out here to the bums of Canada, anyway?” the human said, attempting to strike up a conversation that Bumblebee didn’t want to have. “Nearest town is way out north.”

“Oh, I’m, uh, from Detroit,” Bumblebee said. _Canada? What in Primus’ name is a Canada? Just fill up the damn canisters and go away!_ “Been driving a while.”

“I’ll say,” the guy said with a chuckle. “Detroit’s a hike from here. All the way across the lake.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“Well, good luck to you, dude,” the human said, opening Bumblebee’s trunk and dropping four canisters filled to the brim with gas in them. “You’ll be fine across the border, Mounties are pretty chill.”

Bumblebee had no idea what this human was on about, and the second his trunk was closed, he started his engine gratefully. “Awesome,” he said. “Well, I’m gonna—”

He was suddenly interrupted by a very loud _beep_ echoing through the trees, and the human looked up, alarmed.

“The hell was that?” the man said curiously.

Bumblebee threw himself into reverse, ready to hit the gas and go. He’d never heard that sound out loud before, but he’d recognize it anywhere. Blitzwing’s systems had just gone critical, and if he didn’t get this gas now, he was toast. “Uh, must’ve been my engine,” he said hurriedly. “I’ll go check it out on my way, don’t worry. I’m just gonna—”

“Nah, dude, nothing interesting has happened all day! You’re like, my only customer so far. Let me come with, ain’t no one gonna stop by in the next ten minutes.”

“N-no, really, I should—”

The guy’s hand was on Bumblebee’s handle before he could lock it, and Bumblebee froze as his driver’s side door popped open, revealing that there was absolutely no one in the front seat. The man gasped and stumbled back, looking alarmed.

“What the—”

“Gotta go, bye!”

Bumblebee slammed his door shut and threw himself into reverse, his rims screeching and spitting gravel everywhere as he floored it toward Blitzwing, panic ripping through his frame. _Come on_ , Blitzbrain, he thought. _Don’t you go offline on me now._

The human watched, dumbfounded, as Bumblebee vanished into the woods, transforming as soon as he was out of sight and stumbling over his own pedes as he quickly located Blitzwing. The sight made Bumblebee’s refilled tank twist with panic: Blitzwing was leaned over against a tree, optics open and glazed over, his massive wings drooping against the ground. The audial-splitting beep was the loudest thing Bumblebee had heard in ages, and he toppled over next to Blitzwing as soon as he could, yanking his mouth open and upending one of the canisters of gas directly onto Blitzwing’s face.

He waited with bated breath as the fuel trickled its way to Blitzwing’s tanks, and the beeping ceased only milliseconds before Blitzwing’s optics flashed back to normal, his faces spinning wildly for a moment before pausing on red. He gasped, engines roaring as they restarted, and he tentatively touched his face, looking annoyed.

“You spilled gas everywhere,” Blitzwing said indignantly.

Bumblebee couldn’t help but laugh, all of his sensors and nerves unbundling at once as he leaned against Blitzwing’s chest. “You went critical, you _idiot,_ ” he said, coming very close to tearing up. “Tell me next time you’re that low on fuel or I will let you starve to death.”

Blitzwing’s face spun to black, his grin stretching wide as Bumblebee pulled the three remaining canisters from his trunk, dropping them on the ground. Blitzwing smiled his jagged-toothed smile before eating one of the canisters, plastic and all, sighing in pleasure.

“Worth it!” he said brightly, and Bumblebee laughed again, picking up another canister and holding it toward Blitzwing’s mouth.

It wasn’t until later that night that Bumblebee realized that, for the first time, he hadn’t been concerned about Blitzwing’s signal dampener. He’d been concerned about his life. And as strange of a realization as that was, Bumblebee did his best to shrug it off. It wasn’t like Blitzwing could have figured that out.

* * *

Blitzwing had a little bit of trouble falling asleep that night, lost in his thoughts as Bumblebee snoozed against his leg.

Bumblebee had been awfully concerned about him earlier when his emergency reserves had kicked in. As much as Blitzwing was glad for the worry, as it had inevitably brought him the fuel he so desperately needed, he couldn’t help but wonder why Bumblebee had even been worried in the first place.

Blitzwing looked down at the little Autobot, the small servos that were folded neatly against his cheek, scrunching his face up in a way that was undeniably endearing. Surely Bumblebee had only been fearful for the loss of the signal dampener that had been protecting him from capture for so long. It was a completely logical worry to have, Blitzwing supposed, though he wasn’t sure why that thought made him feel so strange and twisted inside.

Did Blitzwing want Bumblebee to care about him as a mech rather than as a protector? He hissed quietly to himself, hating the unanswered question. So many questions were going unanswered recently, so many thoughts confusing and circular, and Blitzwing despised the feeling. He thrived on stability, ironically enough, and recently he’d had nearly none of it.

But Bumblebee was stable. Always a chatterbox, always just a little bit irritating, always playful, always small, always sticking out like a sore thumb against the drab landscape, always listening and looking around with bright blue optics. Blitzwing liked that about him. Nothing was more frustrating than Bumblebee’s unstable moments, the strange times he’d spent sulking for no particular reason instead of talking to trees.

Blitzwing paused, looking away from Bumblebee to stare into the distance in disbelief, rewinding his thought process.

He… _liked_ that about Bumblebee?

Blitzwing had never particularly liked anything about anyone. Being a lone mech was far easier than dealing with the struggles and drama that every other Decepticon with friends and relationships seemed to deal with. Blitzwing had never been interested in another bot’s words, wanted to hear them talk, thought about their small hands or their big optics or their once-shiny yellow paint. Nor had he ever looked at them and wondered what they were feeling, wanted to learn more about them, eagerly nod along when they told annoying and obviously embellished stories.

Blitzwing sighed so loudly that Bumblebee stirred a bit in his sleep, and when Blitzwing sat still to ensure that the Autobot didn’t wake up, he only felt more irritated. A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have cared at all whether Bumblebee was sleeping comfortably, but here he was, frozen in place, on the lookout for rain in case he had to shield Bumblebee’s small frame from its ice-cold droplets.

Apparently, feelings were the unfortunate reward he got for finally sharing his story. And Blitzwing wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about feelings.


	17. Chapter 17

Blitzwing was rather glad that he generally kept his thoughts to himself, because he found himself at a loss for words more frequently than ever as they walked the next morning. Bumblebee was, of course, chipper beyond description, bouncing around and talking and taking complete advantage of the fullness of his tanks. And Blitzwing was enjoying it, simply watching as Bumblebee acted out fight scenes eagerly, jumping around and nearly slipping across the frozen, muddy ground on multiple occasions.

A lot of things were making more sense to Blitzwing since his realization last night: why he enjoyed the sound of Bumblebee talking so much, how he was so easily distracted nowadays by the little bug, why he was so fascinated by his tiny yellow servos. But Blitzwing figured it best not to bring it up—whether out of fear of rejection or the simple conclusion that a Decepticon should never have feelings for an Autobot, Blitzwing wasn’t sure.

But he was certain that Bumblebee couldn’t possibly have the same feelings toward him.

Blitzwing didn’t let the thought bother him too much. Megatron would never condone something so pathetic as Blitzwing admitting feelings for anyone, let alone a vertically challenged Autobot. Any admission of feelings, whatever exactly they might be, would be a massive and unnecessary risk with little to no payoff.

Blitzwing just hoped that Bumblebee wouldn’t catch the small grin that he couldn’t seem to wipe from his face.

* * *

“Hey! Blitzbrain!” Bumblebee put his hands on his hips, glaring at Blitzwing irritably. “Are you even listening to me? I asked you a question!”

The triple changer looked down at Bumblebee, and Bumblebee cocked his helm curiously as he tried to interpret the odd expression on his face. Something was funky with Blitzwing today, that was for sure. He just couldn’t lay a finger on what exactly it was. 

His thoughts were interrupted by a little scoff from Blitzwing. “How could I not?” he said with dark amusement. “You’ve been talking for three hours now. I wonder how you even manage to have this many things to talk about.”

“Oh, shut up, you big dweeb,” Bumblebee said with a scowl, folding his arms. “You haven’t cut me off, so you must like it at least a little.”

Blitzwing chuckled dryly. “Don’t count on it,” he said in a lilting voice. “What was your question?”

“My what?” Bumblebee said blankly. “I didn’t—oh! I did! Do you know what a ‘Canada’ is?”

Blitzwing raised a brow. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “Why?”

Bumblebee frowned, looking around the woods for a little bit. They’d strayed from the gravel road in an effort to shake off the trail of any curious humans that might be following them, and the action had left Bumblebee feeling extremely uncertain. He had picked the direction that they were going to go, after all, and if they were going the wrong way, the blame was entirely on him.

He shook his helm and shrugged. “That human from yesterday,” he said slowly. “He said we were in the ‘bums of Canada.’ And that Detroit is ‘all the way across the lake.’”

“Well, we certainly know that, don’t we?”

“That’s what I said!” Bumblebee said, feeling his face light up in spite of himself. “But he said the nearest town is north. And we’ve been going south, haven’t we? So maybe we’re… going the wrong way?”

Bumblebee cringed as Blitzwing paused, though he seemed more inquisitive than angry. His face didn’t switch, at least, to Bumblebee’s massive relief. “It’s entirely possible,” Blitzwing said, his monocular telescoping in and out as if trying to search for the Detroit skyline among the trees.

Bumblebee was thunderstruck, staring at Blitzwing with his jaw slack. “And you’re just—you’re not freaking out about that?” he said, unable to keep the nervousness from rising in his voice. “Who knows where we are? We don’t know where we washed up, we’ve just been going south-ish, only sort of following the shoreline! We could’ve been going the complete wrong direction this entire time! What if we—”

Bumblebee’s voice suddenly cut off into muffled protests as Blitzwing clapped a servo over his mouth, his face red and snarling. “Would you pipe down, insect?” Blitzwing growled. “There’s no sense in freaking out about it. Keep your trap shut and maybe then we can think of a plan!”

 

Bumblebee made an irritated noise, his fingers scrabbling against Blitzwing’s. Blitzwing only huffed and squeezed his mouth tighter.

“Are you going to be quiet?”

Bumblebee bit him. Blitzwing hissed and flicked sharply at one of Bumblebee’s horns.

“ _Are you going to be quiet or not?_ ”

Bumblebee narrowed his optics irritably, pausing before nodding, and Blitzwing pulled his servo back as his face spun back to blue with a _whirr_. “Wonderful,” he said. “Then let’s think of a plan, shall we?”

“Unless we somehow get our hands on a map and also figure out how to _read_ human maps, I still feel like we’re pretty screwed,” Bumblebee muttered. “Plus, I seriously doubt a bunch of Canada-ers are going to give us a map. Because on the off chance that they know who I am, they’ll know who you are too.”

“I could hide again,” Blitzwing suggested.

Bumblebee snorted. “Yeah, okay. And I’ll figure out how to read a map while you do that.”

“Surely it can’t be _that_ difficult to ask for directions.”

Bumblebee sighed loudly and sat down on the ground, rubbing his forehead. “Yeah, but then we have to take into account a ton of stuff. What if word gets out that I was spotted here? The Decepticons might come and find us! Or my team will show up and lead the Cons right to us. And I don’t think Megatron is going to be really keen on the idea of you cozying up with an Autobot for—Primus, how long has it even _been_ since we got stuck out here? Weeks? Months? I don’t even know anymore. Have we been going in circles?! We tried going more east that one time, maybe we ended up off course! And even if we get a map, what if it’s only roads or something? You can’t take roads or you’ll get spotted, and if you get seen, you’re gonna get—”

He paused abruptly when he felt a large servo settle gently on his back, and he looked up to see Blitzwing gazing down at him, expression cold and calm as ever. But Blitzwing’s touch wasn’t angry and threatening this time, and though his expression was tight and controlled, he was clearly trying to be comforting. Bumblebee tried to ignore the way that made his spark flutter, and he looked down at the ground, circuitry hissing as his capacitors filled with charge.

“It’s going to be alright, Bumblebee,” Blitzwing said, his usually icy tone melting just slightly along the edges. “We’ll think of something. For now, perhaps we should sit still for a little while? Calm down a tad? Your babbling certainly isn’t helping anyone.”

Bumblebee bit his lower lip hard, completely unable to meet Blitzwing’s gaze, tempted to push Blitzwing’s servo from his back but also dreading the idea of the added warmth going away. “Just for a bit,” he said uncertainly. “We can brainstorm better if we’re not walking. I guess.”

“Right,” Blitzwing said, clearly doubting the logic. “In any case, a break might be beneficial. Would you care to find shapes in the clouds? That always makes you feel better.”

“Does not!” Bumblebee protested loudly, knowing full well that it absolutely did. He drew his knees toward his chest and wrapped his arms around them, hating how bitterly cold the ground was beneath his frame. A frost had descended upon the landscape last night, and sitting still only made the chill penetrate deeper.

“Of course not,” Blitzwing said coolly. His monocular zoomed as his chin tilted skyward, and he pointed at a large, fluffy grey cloud. “That one looks rather like a maple leaf, does it not?”

Bumblebee grumbled and looked up. “I guess,” he said.

 _Whirr._ Blitzwing cackled, scarlet grin stretching viciously wide, and he jabbed a digit insistently at the sky. “Oh, and that one looks like a kitten!” he said gleefully.

Bumblebee raised a brow, following Blitzwing’s finger toward a cloud that didn’t even slightly resemble any sort of four legged animal. He chuckled quietly, poking Blitzwing’s elbow. “I don’t know about that one,” he said. “Looks more like Sentinel’s chin to me.”

Blitzwing giggled and pointed at another. “No, _that_ one is Sentinel’s chin,” he said. His finger drifted to a much larger, incredibly misshapen cloud, and he giggled even louder. “And _that_ one is Lugnut’s aft!”

Bumblebee couldn’t help but laugh, smacking Blitzwing’s arm playfully a few times. His digits felt so cold against Blitzwing’s warm dual-engined frame, and Bumblebee looked up at Blitzwing, tanks churning nervously.

“Can you… scoot a little closer?” he asked softly. “I’m… kinda cold.”

Blitzwing held no hesitation in lifting Bumblebee up and plopping him into his lap, his smile impossibly wide as he looked down. “Of course,” he said brightly, the corners of his mouth stretching so high that his face practically split in half. “Sharing is caring!”

Bumblebee grinned weakly, trying desperately to avoid nudging as close to Blitzwing as possible. He couldn’t help himself—Blitzwing was warm and comfortable, and Bumblebee despised how well their frames fit together as much as he enjoyed it. He hoped he didn’t look too obviously embarrassed as he cast his gaze skyward, looking for more recognizable shapes in the clouds.

Not to mention the strange quirk lacing Blitzwing’s voice that Bumblebee didn’t dare consider overanalyzing. Now was not the time.

* * *

“Bumblebee?”

“Mhm?”

“I have an idea. But it’s incredibly risky.”

“How so?”

“We may die. Or, rather, you may die.”

“Okay, jeez. That was blunt.”

“But if we succeed, we’re almost guaranteed a straight path back to Detroit with little to no effort. And a very minimal risk of running into humans.”

“... I dunno. ‘You may die’ is an awfully big risk.”

“Do you trust me?”

“I—I guess?”

“I need a more definitive answer than that.

“Then… yeah. I do.”

“Good. Then listen very, very carefully, and I promise that I will keep you safe.”

* * *

It took a surprisingly long time to find a grove of trees that was thick enough to completely obscure Bumblebee’s bright frame from the sky—or, at least, he hoped it would. He couldn’t see the clouds above, and Blitzwing had ordered him to stay as close to a tree trunk as possible, just to ensure that he would be hidden from an aerial view.

“Are you sure about this, Blitzbrain?” Bumblebee said nervously, fiddling with his fingers as he looked around. It had been so long since he’d spent any time away from Blitzwing, even if only for a short while, and Bumblebee was already feeling incredibly strange about the notion. Even though Blitzwing was clearly doing his best to look reassuring, managing little more than a half-smile, but Bumblebee at least appreciated the effort.

“Almost completely sure, yes,” Blitzwing said, looking around the grove for a few moments, checking the landscape for hiding spots. “The sun is currently setting in the—?”

“West.”

“Good. And you are going to run—?”

“Southeast. As fast as I can.”

“Perfect. And I will be—?”

“Waiting for me south-southeast by those weird white trees.”

“Birch trees, yes.” Blitzwing’s lips drifted up into an almost-complete smile, and Bumblebee felt his spark jump into his intake. He quickly looked down at the ground, kicking up some dirt with his pedes, shaking a little bit in the chilly afternoon air and hoping that the happy hum of his engine wasn’t too obvious.

“This is a really dumb plan,” Bumblebee said for the millionth time. “You pinky swear it’ll be okay?”

Blitzwing nodded, offering his smallest finger to Bumblebee. “I pinky swear,” he promised.

Bumblebee took a deep breath and intertwined their digits for a moment, nodding determinedly. “Alright, then,” he said. “Let’s do this. Detroit, here we come.”

Blitzwing stood up, his damaged knee squeaking unpleasantly as he looked around the grove of trees. “I estimate the range of my signal dampener to be about two hundred meters,” he said. “I will be going roughly three hundred to be sure. Are you ready?”

Bumblebee swallowed hard, pressing himself against a tree, bracing to run. “Ready.”

With a nod and a turn on his heel, Blitzwing was limping away from Bumblebee, his heavy footfalls growing quieter and quieter as he disappeared among the trees due southeast. Eventually, Bumblebee heard nothing at all but the occasional chirping of birds, the crunch of leaves shifting under tiny organic wildlife feet, and the wind as it whistled past Bumblebee’s audials.

He took a strained breath, closing his optics, trying to listen as intently as possible. All he needed to hear was the sound of a single engine, feel a shift in the breeze, anything, and then the plan would be in action. He closed his vents as much as possible so the movement of the air wouldn’t distract him. This was one time he could not afford to be distracted.

For a long ten minutes, the suspense was nearly unbearable. Bumblebee wished now more than ever that his comm-link wasn’t damaged. Simple reassurance that Blitzwing was waiting for him by those white trees would be enough to ease his pounding spark. Probably. 

_Just stay calm_ , Bumblebee told himself. _Everything is fine. This is going to work, and you can go home. You wanna go home, right? Get to see Prime and Bulkhead and everyone, and finally get out of this nightmare? ...Right?_

Bumblebee bit down hard on his lower lip, daring to shift a little bit away from his tree, peering through the empty tree branches and at the sky above. Nothing. Maybe he should go back to Blitzwing, call this plan a failure, and go find some human who could teach them how to read maps. 

A very quiet sound started rattling through the branches, almost imperceptibly so.

Bumblebee froze stiffly in place, his entire frame feeling like it was locking up, straining his audials to their limit in an attempt to listen. What had that been? Just a strange gust of wind? It sounded almost like a helicopter, very far in the distance, the sound amplified as it echoed through the woods and over the seemingly endless stretch of lake to the west. But there was something else with it, something much louder, a low groan of an engine that seemed to rattle Bumblebee’s very protoform.

“Oh, slag,” he whispered as realization struck him, his optics going wide with panic. So the plan had worked, then. He looked toward the sun, determined which was southeast was, and took off as fast as his legs could carry him.

The sound of engines got louder and louder at a terrifying speed, and within moments, Bumblebee feared his audials may explode from the noise. A loud _whoosh_ split the air as one of the engines came to a halt just meters away from him, the whupping of helicopter blades blowing twigs and leaves everywhere as it hovered just above the treeline. 

Bumblebee stumbled over a log and nearly fell flat on his face as the telltale _tsche-chu-chu-chu-tsche_ of a transformation sounded twice, followed by two heavy slams as two very, very large beings hit the ground and practically rattled the earth below them. Bumblebee wheezed and checked the sun, making sure he was going the right direction, attempting to scramble forward as fast as he could while also staying as silent as possible.

“Master,” a deep, grumbling voice said, rustling the trees with its bass. “The Autobot’s life signal has disappeared.”

Bumblebee pinpointed the voice immediately as Lugnut, and his spark seized in his chest as he began crawling southeast on his hands and knees, opting to prioritize silence over speed. If that was Lugnut, then the helicopter must have been—

“Rubbish,” Megatron snarled, his thundering footsteps moving in Bumblebee’s direction and shaking the dirt below him like an earthquake. “Unless you landed on top of him, there is no way he could have masked his signal that quickly. Fan out and search for him.”

“Yes, Master,” Lugnut said, his tone as disgustingly adoring as always. Bumblebee looked around frantically as the two Decepticons separated, most definitely searching for him.

 _You’re fine_ , Bumblebee told himself, trying to quell his panic. _Lugnut said your signal is gone. You’re back in Blitzwing’s range. Birch trees. Just gotta find Blitzwing. This is all part of the plan. Just keep going southeast, southeast, southeast…_

Bumblebee continued his crawling, searching hectically for the designated patch of birch trees, his spark pounding his in chassis. Every footstep from Lugnut and Megatron’s pedes was deafening, the ground trembling below him.

“My liege, my Master,” Lugnut rumbled. “Perhaps the puny Autobot is not worth the effort. He—”

“I will decide what is and what is not ‘worth the effort,’” Megatron snapped. “You did report that the Autobot and Blitzwing were caught in a similar riptide when you foolishly used your punch in the lake, did you not?”

“Yes, but—”

“Therefore, if we find the Autobot, we may find Blitzwing as well,” Megatron said, his voice a heavy, threatening purr. “I need him back in my ranks. He at least has one third of a functioning processor, whereas you have none.”

Bumblebee snorted quietly in spite of himself, pulling himself on his elbows toward a patch of trees, his chest scraping over leaves and rocks and sticks, paint peeling from his frame. Lugnut sounded as though he was moving in Bumblebee’s direction, muttering quietly under his breath, and Bumblebee picked up the pace nervously. He was as good as dead if Lugnut saw him, or even caught a glimpse of his frame.

At least Blitzwing would be safe, then.

The fleeting thought crossed Bumblebee’s processor—what if that had been Blitzwing’s plan all along? Use Bumblebee as bait to finally get himself back to the Decepticons safely, with one less Autobot to worry about in the future? _No way_ , Bumblebee told himself as Lugnut got closer and closer. _He wouldn’t. I can trust him. Can’t I? Oh, man, that would be a sucky way to go, dying by getting stepped on by Lugnut. I’m so slagged. Blitzwing, I swear to Primus, if this was a trick, I’m—_

Bumblebee gasped as he suddenly felt two strong servos wrap tightly around his waist and yank him to the side, and he began to thrash around in terror, opening his mouth to scream.

“Get—!”

One of the servos clapped over his mouth, and Bumblebee abruptly found himself pressed between a warm, broad frame and the frozen ground. The servo covering his mouth squeezed tighter, and a hoarse whisper sounded from above him.

“Don’t move a single piston,” the voice said. A tidal wave of relief washed over Bumblebee—it was Blitzwing. Not Lugnut or Megatron about to rip his helm off. Bumblebee nodded, and this time, he didn’t protest having his mouth covered. It was, if nothing else, a good reminder to stay quiet. Not that he needed it, with two deadly Decepticons making the ground quake beneath him.

Lugnut had veered off somewhere to the east, and after what felt like hours, his tired voice emanated through the trees. 

“Master, I do not think they are here,” he said. “There is no sign of the Autobot or of Blitzwing.”

“Keep searching,” Megatron growled, and both Bumblebee and Blitzwing jolted in fear, their optics locking on each other. Megatron was just a few trees away, apparently far more stealthy than either of them had anticipated. Bumblebee put his hands on top of Blitzwing’s to further muffle any sounds he might make; Blitzwing folded his wings in tighter, pressing into their hiding space as deep as possible.

The air was rushing in and out of Blitzwing’s vents with surprising sharpness, every breath ragged and tense. Bumblebee looked up at him, momentarily having forgotten that Megatron terrified the hell out of Blitzwing. Did he feel this stressed every single day that he spent in Megatron’s high command?

Bumblebee squeezed his hands around Blitzwing’s a little more firmly. Blitzwing’s vents hissed and stalled, hot air rushing out of them much more relaxedly. Bumblebee smiled.

“Lugnut,” Megatron said sharply, his voice making both Bumblebee and Blitzwing jump again, wiping the smile right off of Bumblebee’s face. “Mark down these coordinates. We will return in the morning to search for Blitzwing. Searching in the dark is useless, and the sun is going down. If we find the Autobot as well, that will just be a happy accident.”

“Yes, Master,” Lugnut rumbled, and Bumblebee felt his tanks settle. They were leaving. Finally. Blitzwing turned his helm skyward, standing up incredibly slowly, keeping Bumblebee tight in his arms with a servo over his mouth.

“Do not move and do not speak,” Blitzwing breathed. “I need to look now.”

Bumblebee nodded, clutching to Blitzwing’s servos, fighting to stay as still as possible.

Blitzwing walked incredibly slowly from their small nook of trees, his limp much more obvious now that Bumblebee was pressed so tightly against him, but he didn’t dare say anything about it. They both watched intently as Lugnut lumbered back into view—Blitzwing ducked down slightly into the long shadow of a tree, peering out with his optic narrowed and his monocular zooming in and out rapidly.

“What are you standing around for?” Megatron snapped as Lugnut looked at the ground with his massive red optic. Bumblebee followed his gaze to a small scuff of yellow paint scratched into a rock, and his frame seized up. He tapped on Blitzwing’s servos in panic, but Blitzwing merely shook his helm and tightened his grip over Bumblebee’s mouth.

Lugnut looked back up at Megatron and shook his helm. “My apologies, my liege,” he said. “The coordinates have been noted.”

“Excellent,” Megatron growled, clearly annoyed, jumping into the air. His frame rearranged itself into a huge helicopter, and he lifted off from the ground, blasting leaves and rocks everywhere as a blast of wind crashed into the ground. Lugnut followed immediately, and once they were above the treeline, Blitzwing jerked to the side, his monocular telescoping longer than Bumblebee had ever seen it.

The sound of their engines vanished into the distance in minutes, and only once silence rang in the air for a solid minute did Blitzwing set Bumblebee down on the ground. Bumblebee gasped, falling to his hands and knees, shaking violently.

“That was _way_ too close,” he wheezed, digging his digits into the ground. “They almost saw us, like, five times! Lugnut was looking at _my_ paint on the ground!”

“Lugnut is far more interested in following orders than pointing out important discoveries,” Blitzwing said calmly. Bumblebee glanced up at him, shocked to see that he was smiling, a real smile on the face that rarely wore any expression other than a smirk or a frown. He blinked in surprise.

“You’re…. smiling,” Bumblebee pointed out.

Blitzwing nodded. “West,” he said simply. “They went west.”

Bumblebee sat down on the ground, clutching his shaking legs, trying to calm himself down. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. They would not risk taking any path that wasn’t direct for fear of being exposed to human eyes. Detroit is to our west.”

“So we _were_ going the wrong way,” Bumblebee muttered.

Blitzwing’s expression had cleared into a calm, gentle frown once again, though he shrugged rather nonchalantly. “That doesn’t matter now,” he said. “We know which way to go. And judging by the time it took them to arrive, I estimate we can make the journey in just under a couple of weeks. Provided that we take detours to avoid humans and terrain that cannot be navigated. Though if they flew over a lake, perhaps a week more.”

Bumblebee felt a grin rise on his face, and he flopped back onto his back with a happy sigh. “Weeks,” he repeated. “Just a few weeks and we’ll be back home. This was a good plan. A stupid plan, but a good one. I can’t believe we’ve been going the wrong way all this time…”

“If I remember correctly, it was _you_ who insisted we travel south,” Blitzwing said, his smirk audible in his tone.

Bumblebee scoffed, though he wasn’t able to wipe the grin from his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Just a couple of weeks. Bumblebee knew he should be excited. But a small part of his processor kept nagging him over and over: _A couple of weeks from now, and Blitzwing is your enemy again. No excuses. You know how it has to be._

Bumblebee ignored his thoughts, trying not to think too much of it, instead closing his optics and filling his vents with cold, fresh air. On the plus side, he supposed, a couple of weeks with Blitzwing was better than a couple of days.

* * *

Both Blitzwing and Bumblebee agreed that resting after such a stressful afternoon was the best approach, even if they did know now which way Detroit was. A few extra hours wouldn’t hurt, especially if they were just weeks away from safety.

Blitzwing opted to watch the sunset from the top of a rock structure, lounging rather lazily and gazing out at the river in the distance, watching the colors of the sky ripple and shift among the water. 

Just a couple of weeks.

It was an odd feeling, knowing they were so close to their respective factions, to having their lives go back to normal after all this time. The idea was as tempting as it was foreign—spending time with Bumblebee felt like the new norm now, not fighting Autobots and stealing supplies from organics for Megatron’s space bridge.

Sitting back and watching the sunset, strange as it was, felt much more normal now than doing what he’d done for millions of years during the war. 

Blitzwing sighed, rubbing his forehead. He should be glad to return to his millenia-old routine. But something about the idea felt odd. Bumblebee was full of information now that no one else knew. Was that the reason Blitzwing didn’t want to leave him alone? Or perhaps it was the strange worry that something would happen to Bumblebee if Blitzwing wasn’t around to keep his mouth shut at inopportune times.

He merely sighed again. Hopefully he wasn’t taking too strongly to this new normalcy. It felt far too comfortable to be his.


	18. Chapter 18

Bumblebee woke up feeling much colder than usual, and he grumbled on instinct, scooting closer to Blitzwing’s leg. The air seemed to be pressing down on him, much more chilly than it had been just a few hours ago, and Bumblebee blearily opened his optics, looking around.

He leaped up almost immediately, a grin splitting his face open, and he shook his frame off and started drumming his servos on Blitzwing’s leg.

“Blitzwing!” he said, tapping insistently. “Blitzwing, Blitzwing, Blitzwing! It’s snowing! It’s _snowing!_ ”

Blitzwing’s optic cracked open, and he glanced down at Bumblebee, monocular telescoping in and out slowly as if only just starting to boot up. 

“Yes,” he said, his voice laced with exhaustion. “I can see that.”

“I _love_ snow!” Bumblebee said happily, smacking Blitzwing a few more times before jumping to his feet, brushing the layers of snow and frost from his frame. “Sari and I would always have snowball fights in it! You ever had a snowball fight before? It’s super awesome! You just smush the snow together in your hands, like this—hold on—there we go!”

Bumblebee pressed a bundle of snow together in his hands, grinning widely as he took aim at Blitzwing’s face. Blitzwing raised a brow.

“Did you make ammunition? Out of snow?” he asked dryly.

“I dunno,” Bumblebee said with a smirk, hurling the snowball at Blitzwing. It landed with a quiet plop on Blitzwing’s chest, leaving a small white smudge on the beige armor. Blitzwing glanced down as Bumblebee giggled, though his spark sank when he heard a loud _whirr_.

“That’s idiotic!” Blitzwing snapped, his red face somehow even more saturated than normal, visor flashing angrily. “What’s the point?! That didn’t even _hurt!_ ”

“It’s not supposed to hurt, you goofball!” Bumblebee laughed, quickly preparing another snowball, already fearing for his fate at the hands of an angry Blitzwing. “It’s for fun!”

Blitzwing snarled, his servo swiping down and grabbing a massive handful of snow. Bumblebee screamed and tried to run behind a tree, but to no avail—Blitzwing didn’t have to make a ball to completely coat Bumblebee’s frame in snow, the wave of white washing over Bumblebee before he could even cover his face. He gasped, his armor clattering as he tried to dry himself off. Blitzwing snickered darkly.

“You’re right,” he said with a smirk. “That is fun.”

Bumblebee found himself laughing, wiping his optics.

“See?” he said brightly. “Told ya! Even though you totally cheated, having giant servos and all.”

“That’s not cheating!” Blitzwing yelled. “It’s calling _using your resources!_ ”

Bumblebee snickered and ran back toward Blitzwing, a fresh snowball launching from his hand. Blitzwing didn’t even attempt to dodge, chuckling as the snowball landed against his frame, dissipating into cold dust.

“Nice try, bug,” he chuckled. “But you’re going to have to try a lot harder if you—”

“Think fast!” Bumblebee leaped up and slammed his pedes into the tree Blitzwing was leaning against, effectively dumping the precarious contents of the branches onto both himself and Blitzwing. Blitzwing yelped and attempted the shield his helm, but it was no use—they were both coated in snow before either one could react. Bumblebee laughed hysterically at the shock on Blitzwing’s face, his jaw hanging slack for a moment before snapping shut into a scowl.

“You—”

“You’re not allowed to be mad!” Bumblebee laughed, wiping snow from his optics. “I totally got you! Let me have this!”

Blitzwing didn’t seem thrilled by the prospect of accepting a loss, but once his face spun back to blue, he sighed.

“Very well,” he muttered. “You can ‘have’ that one. Now come on, bug. We have walking to do.”

* * *

Snowflakes drifted from the trees, landing on Blitzwing’s armor and evaporating on the spot against his warm frame. It was a disappointment, almost—Blitzwing wanted to be reach out and examine them, touch them, perhaps even feel if they were as soft as they looked. He’d overheard many humans discuss how no two snowflakes were alike, every single one different, and the idea alone fascinated Blitzwing. How could so many things that were so vastly different look so beautifully similar when spread across the landscape?

It appeared to be just cold enough for the snow to cling to the ground, creating a thin blanket of white that thinned under the wind’s ever delicate touch. Bumblebee seemed to be paying no mind to the snow’s beauty, instead focusing on romping around like a sparkling, kicking up little puffs of white any time he came across a pile that was large enough to attack. Blitzwing couldn’t help but grin at him. So much energy packed into such a small bot. How was _that_ possible?

Blitzwing zoomed in on a snowflake as it fell toward Bumblebee’s helm, watching it melt on contact, its delicate structure dissipated the moment it collided with the scuffed yellow paint. Only then did Blitzwing notice just how damaged Bumblebee was, his paint scratched and clotted with muck. His arm still bore the scars from so many weeks ago, the metal twisted out of place, the damage underneath repaired but the sleek aesthetic ruined entirely.

Blitzwing glanced down at his own frame, wondering if he looked quite that bad. But Bumblebee didn’t seem to mind either of their states of disrepair—he was running this way and that, laughing and blabbering something that Blitzwing wasn’t paying attention to. He tried to focus a little bit, reminding himself of just how happy it made Bumblebee when he noted that he was paying attention.

“—So then I totally spun out, right? On the highway! There were cars everywhere, and I was skidding like crazy, and Prowl is yelling at me. ‘Steer into the skid,’ over and over, like that makes any sense, right? So I tried it, and it totally worked!”

“Good to know,” Blitzwing chimed in.

Bumblebee turned around, his optics landing on Blitzwing’s, a grin spreading on his face. Blitzwing couldn’t help but return the gesture, albeit in a much more subdued manner.

“You ever gotten stuck in snow before?” Bumblebee asked brightly, sliding across the snowy ground in a haste to get back to Blitzwing’s side. Blitzwing gently held an arm out before Bumblebee could crash into him, holding onto his shoulders as the little Autobot regained his footing.

“I have not,” Blitzwing said. “It’s a rather Earth-centric phenomenon, is it not?”

“Well, yeah,” Bumblebee said, his servos gently taking hold of Blitzwing’s and guiding them from his shoulders once he had proper traction. _Such soft little hands,_ he thought. “I forgot you haven’t been on Earth long. Is this the first time you’ve ever seen snow?”

“Made of water, yes,” Blitzwing said, watching as Bumblebee took up a slower pace in an attempt to stay at his side. “There was a battle on a planet with crystallized acetone falling from the sky in a similar manner. Not nearly as fun of an experience as this.”

Bumblebee laughed, a little spring taking over his step. “Well, I’m glad to share this with you, then,” he said happily. “I love snow. It’s super fun to drift in. You ever gone drifting?”

“I’m a tank, Bumblebee.”

“Oh, we _totally_ have to try drifting, then! I’ve never seen a tank drift before! Can they even do that?”

Something about that statement made Blitzwing’s spark leap into his throat. Perhaps it was the fact that Bumblebee was implying they see each other after they made it back to Detroit, or perhaps it was Blitzwing’s pessimistic thought that they absolutely would not be able to do that. Not if Megatron had any say in it, that was for sure.

He decided to simply focus on the positives.

“I don’t know,” Blitzwing said calmly. “How about we find out once my t-cog is working again?”

Bumblebee smiled widely up at Blitzwing, his dentae just as white as the snow cascading around him, the blue of his optics seeming to shine a little brighter, a little warmer.

“Totally,” he said happily. “Let’s do that.”

* * *

Bumblebee liked snow. He did not, however, like wind. And as the day continued, the sun stifled by the heavy clouds above, the wind only got stronger and stronger. Snow started to blast its way into the seams of Bumblebee’s armor, exciting all of Bumblebee’s sensors and sending him into a fit of shivering.

He couldn’t help it. He was small, and his engine wasn’t designed for protection from alien elements like snow. His happy chit chat about the logistics of drifting with tank treads slowly faded into the chattering of his dentae against one another, and he grumbled irritably as he wrapped his servos around the thinner parts of the armor on his arms. 

“It’s cold,” Bumblebee said, as if that wasn’t obvious.

Blitzwing didn’t seem particularly bothered—in fact, he seemed rather surprised as he glanced down in Bumblebee’s direction. Bumblebee couldn’t blame him. He’d said he liked the cold, and it surely didn’t bother him all that much, with two engines generating heat so strong that the snow turned to water the second it met his massive frame.

“I suppose it is, yes,” Blitzwing said plainly.

They continued forward, the wind whipping through the trees, generating an eerie howl that seemed incredibly loud against Bumblebee’s audials. He huffed, watching wisps of the warm air from his frame blow away in seconds, and he tilted his helm down in attempt to shield himself from the biting chill.

“Can we take a break, maybe?” Bumblebee said, squeezing his fingers tighter around his arms. “Just a couple hours until the wind dies down? My engine is not loving this at all. And neither am I.”

“I wasn’t aware that you were a wimp,” Blitzwing said, his face spinning to black, his crimson grin tearing his expression in half. Bumblebee sighed, jabbing his elbow into Blitzwing’s thigh.

“Please?” he said, inserting a needy edge to his tone.

“Say you’re a wimp.”

“No!”

“Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy wimp, wimpy wimp, wimpy wimp can’t handle the wind, wimpy wind wimp, wimpy—”

“Alright!” Bumblebee snapped, trying not to more irritated than amused and failing. “I’m a wimp! Can we please stop for a bit? I’m fragging freezing here!”

Blitzwing cackled for a few moments before his face switched back to blue, his monocular spinning around until it seemed to locate something in the distance. Bumblebee jumped a little when he felt a warm servo against his back, guiding him to the left.

“There’s a rock structure over that way,” Blitzwing said. “An overhang of some sort will protect you from the snow. And I can be your windbreaker—it’s coming from the east, so I’ll just sit in its path.”

Bumblebee bit his lip and nodded wordlessly, his spark doing somersaults inside his chest. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“It’s no matter,” Blitzwing said plainly, pushing Bumblebee forward gently. “No shame in being a wimp.”

Bumblebee bit his lip even harder trying not to smile.

* * *

It had been a good choice, Blitzwing decided, for Bumblebee to request a break. Merely an hour later, the wind was moaning loudly around them, cold and sharp enough to slice straight through Blitzwing’s armor, making him shudder lightly every so often. They’d found a small nook against a face of rocks, which didn’t provide much shelter, but it certainly sufficed. And Blitzwing didn’t mind taking the brunt of the wind—with his wings tucked into the cranny as far as they would go, he didn’t have much aversion to the cold.

It was refreshing, in a way. Almost like taking a flight above the clouds. Windy, damp, and cold, but freeing at the same time.

_Better than the heat, anyway_ , Blitzwing thought, chuckling a little.

Bumblebee looked up at him, his optics glowing in the grey darkness being cast by the clouds above. He was still shivering quite violently, his plating pressed tightly over any exposed circuitry, but he seemed to be at least mostly comfortable. Comfortable enough to start talking again, anyway.

“What are you laughing at?” Bumblebee said, his tone almost indignant, as if assuming Blitzwing had been laughing at him.

Blitzwing shook his helm. “Just thinking,” he said.

“About?”

“The wind,” Blitzwing said with a small shrug. “It reminds me of flying. Which must be why I can tolerate it so much better than you can.”

“I _can_ tolerate it!” Bumblebee said defensively. “I just—I prefer not to!”

Blitzwing snickered quietly, patting Bumblebee’s helm. “I’m sure you can,” he said earnestly, sarcasm dripping from his words. “Now hush. You want to preserve fuel.”

Bumblebee huffed and lowered his chin back to his knees, his frame tucked into a little ball, arms wrapped around his legs. Blitzwing returned his gaze to the world outside of their little cave, trying to catch glimpses of individual snowflakes, wishing he could slow down time and examine them closer.

“What’s it like?”

Blitzwing looked back down at Bumblebee, cocking his helm. “Hm?”

“Flying,” Bumblebee said. “What’s it like? Is it fun?”

“You wouldn’t like it,” Blitzwing said simply. “It’s cold, especially when you get in the stratosphere. And very windy.”

“Yeah, but you’re _flying_ ,” Bumblebee said wistfully, shifting his weight around in a happy little wiggle. “It’s worth it if you’re flying.”

“I suppose so.”

“Is it fun?”

“Enjoyable, in a sense,” Blitzwing said. “Though we rarely get the chance to fly for pleasure. It’s quite a waste of time.”

Blitzwing watched a strangely troubled expression come over Bumblebee’s face as he gazed out past Blitzwing’s frame, watching the snowflakes spin out of control in the wind. Blitzwing wished his chronometer was functioning. Was this characteristic weather? Or perhaps it was just a cold spell?

“During the war,” Bumblebee said quietly, “did you ever see grounders flying? Any Autobots at all?”

Blitzwing felt a curious grin lift his lips, and he shrugged. “Not particularly,” he said. “Where did this sudden interest come from?”

Bumblebee shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “Just wondering. I kinda wanna try it. If you think it’s ‘enjoyable,’ it’s gotta be worth giving it a shot.”

Blitzwing kept his gaze on Bumblebee for a while, grateful that the Autobot didn’t seem to notice. He’d never really thought about flying as something fun, more so taking it for granted. It was a technique, not something pleasurable, built into his frame for military purposes. 

_Maybe once my damn t-cog works again, I’ll try flying for enjoyment, little bug_ , Blitzwing thought, tempted to say so aloud but feeling a peculiar inclination to keep his thoughts to himself. 

“Can you take me sometime?” Bumblebee said, his voice barely audible over the wind.

Blitzwing bit the inside of his cheek hard, not knowing how to answer. This was twice now that Bumblebee had suggested doing things that would require him to be back in Detroit. They would be enemies soon enough, and Blitzwing wasn’t sure if Bumblebee was ignoring that fact or simply forgetting it.

“Take you?” he said uncertainly.

“Yeah,” Bumblebee said. “I’m not that heavy. Just for a little bit.”

“I can try,” Blitzwing offered slowly. “But… you do realize that—”

“I know,” Bumblebee said, much louder, cutting Blitzwing off abruptly. “I know. I’m just… wishful thinking, I guess. Flying sounds fun. That’s all. Don’t worry about it. Forget I said anything.”

“Wishful thinking?” Blitzwing said, his spark trembling a little.

“Yeah,” Bumblebee said, his voice impossibly quiet once again. “About… flying.”

Blitzwing nodded, his gaze shifting out toward the trees once again as he tried to focus on snowflakes. He’d found himself avoiding the question as to what they were going to do when they returned to their respective bases. Blitzwing surely couldn’t tell Megatron that he’d been receiving help from an Autobot at all, let alone being emotionally vulnerable with one. Bumblebee might be able to share his story with the Autobots, but they were going to have to go back to being sworn enemies. 

After all this time protecting each other, Blitzwing wondered, were they going to have to return to trying to kill each other?

He sighed as quietly as he could, trusting the wind to block out the sound. Perhaps unanswered questions were better in some situations.

* * *

Bumblebee was glad for the shelter, minimal as it was—the wind was getting louder and louder, the air colder and colder as the nearly-invisible sun dipped toward the horizon. His plating clattered against itself as it tried to seal in any warm air that his engine was generating, and Bumblebee found himself scooting closer and closer to Blitzwing in an attempt to shield himself from the wind.

“You doing okay?” Bumblebee asked quietly, prodding at Blitzwing’s damaged knee, trying to find an excuse to touch Blitzwing’s frame.

“My knee?” Blitzwing said. “As good as it can be.”

“That too, but like—you,” Bumblebee said, stumbling over his own words. “You’re not too cold, are you?”

Bumblebee said the hints of a smile showing in Blitzwing’s optics, though not spreading on his lips. It was strange, the way Blitzwing emoted. His expressions were, ironically, incredibly subtle when his face wasn’t spinning back and forth wildly. A small quirk of cornflower lips, a flash across a scarlet visor, an extra stretch in a jagged smile. Bumblebee remembered once how Blitzwing had mentioned his frustrations at constantly displaying his emotions, all the time, never able to hide them, but he’d slowly learned that there was a lot more to Blitzwing than a spinning face and a humongous frame.

Bumblebee liked his subtlety and his obviousness. He liked a lot of Blitzwing. And the fact that they were so close to Detroit was starting to weigh rather heavily on his processor. What were they supposed to do after this? Just act like they hadn’t spent months together, helping each other, sleeping next to each other?

Bumblebee looked up at Blitzwing, his spark like lead in its chamber. How the frag was he supposed to pretend like he hated this mech, the one currently guarding him from the blustering winds outside? The one asking for nothing in return even though his plating was locked tight, his frame rattling every so often when the cold got to be too much?

_Might as well make the most of it_ , Bumblebee thought bravely. There was no sense in brooding all the way to Detroit. If they had to go back to being enemies, so be it. But for now, they were friends—or, at least, Bumblebee hoped they were.

Without giving himself time to contemplate, Bumblebee crawled into Blitzwing’s lap, taking Blitzwing’s servos in his own and wrapping them around his frame. They were so large, encapsulating Bumblebee’s easily, his forearms blocking a decent chunk of the wind, though not all of it. Blitzwing looked rather surprised as he looked down at Bumblebee, monocular zipping in and out as if curious.

“What are you doing?” Blitzwing asked.

“You looked kinda cold,” Bumblebee said, huffing in spite of himself. “You keep me warm all the time, I can at least try to return the favor, can’t I?”

Blitzwing stared in silence for a few moments, his lips tightening as if on the precipice of smiling. “I suppose,” he said softly.

“Good,” Bumblebee said, folding his legs up so his knees were pressed against Blitzwing’s bulky knuckles. “Bend your elbow a bit. You’re letting some wind in.”

_Whirr_. Blitzwing scowled, lips curled into a sneer, the gap in his dentae just barely visible. “You’re the moron that crawled into my lap, you insolent little Autobot,” he hissed.

“Yeah, and you’re letting wind in,” Bumblebee said. “Elbow.”

Blitzwing snarled angrily but complied nonetheless, and Bumblebee grinned, nuzzling back against the warm frame behind him.

“Does that help at all?” he asked.

“I wasn’t cold in the first place, bug,” Blitzwing snapped.

“So that’s a yes?”

Blitzwing growled, his digits squeezing around Bumblebee’s gently, pressing into his chest just a little more firmly. “I guess,” he grumbled.

Bumblebee grinned, resting his chin on Blitzwing’s fingers, looking out at the winter storm before them. It was pretty to look at, at least—the snow swirled rather beautifully in the wind, thin clouds of dusty flakes occasionally obscuring their view, the howling of the wind inconsistent and pleasant all at once. 

Bumblebee’s digits shifted a little bit under Blitzwing’s, moving to a more comfortable position. Blitzwing’s adjusted with them.

“This is stupid,” Blitzwing said suddenly. Bumblebee laughed, wiggling his fingers playfully.

“ _You’re_ stupid.”

“You’re stupider!”

“You’re stupidest!”

“But I’m warm and you’re not. Idiotic flea.”

“Shut up. Wanna try counting snowflakes?”

“Wanna try _shutting up for once?_ ”

“Not at all. And I bet you don’t want me to either.”

“I—yes, I do! Shut up!”

“Nope! Wanna hear about the time I accidentally knocked a boulder onto Bulkhead?”

“Could I stop you even if I wanted to?”

“Absolutely not.”

_Whirr._ “Then I suppose you can tell me whatever you want.”


	19. Chapter 19

Bumblebee’s HUD sputtered back online slowly as he woke up, his optics fuzzy after what had been a longer night of rest than expected. A thin coating of damp snow coated the landscape, melting slightly as the temperature climbed just above freezing, the gently sound of dripping water filling a silence absent of wildlife.

Bumblebee’s digits wiggled a little bit, his processor wondering fuzzily why they felt so stiff before he looked down and saw the much larger black fingers that were encapsulating them. Blitzwing’s. Bumblebee’s gaze trailed up his arm and to his face, which was settled on red, his upper lip twitching almost imperceptibly into an occasional sneer. Bumblebee chuckled and let his frame relax, tucking himself deeper into Blitzwing’s chest, listening to the quiet hum of engines in recharge.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep in Blitzwing’s lap, but he certainly wasn’t going to complain about it. Blitzwing was impossibly warm, his body melting all of the snow that had surrounded them overnight, leaving a bare circle of mud in their wake. Bumblebee looked down at his pedes and wiggled them a little bit against Blitzwing’s thighs—Blitzwing was apparently far too deep in sleep to notice, simply tightening his grip on Bumblebee’s hands, his vents dragging in a long, slow sigh of the cold morning air.

Bumblebee looked around for a few moments, wondering if perhaps he should wake Blitzwing up, get them back on the road. Detroit couldn’t be far now, not after all of the walking they’d done. They could be mere days away, maybe even less, and the thought made Bumblebee wiggle with excitement. 

For a few moments, at least.

He did want to be back with the Autobots, he was sure of that. But leaving Blitzwing behind, essentially being forced to forget about everything they’d gone through together… Bumblebee wasn’t keen on that idea at all. He pressed his fingers between Blitzwing’s, feeling the warmth of the gaps between each digit, smiling a little bit to himself.

He’d let Blitzwing sleep as long as he needed to. There was little sense in rushing now, if they were as close to Detroit as Bumblebee suspected, and a few extra hours in the woods wouldn’t kill anyone. He shut his optics once again, feeling Blitzwing’s servos tighten around his own, a little grumble of nonsense emitting from Blitzwing’s vocalizer as he dreamed. Bumblebee couldn’t help but grin.

At least he wasn’t having nightmares anymore.

* * *

“Come on, Bumblebee. We have places to be.”

Blitzwing felt, strangely, as if he was dragging Bumblebee out of their cave, watching Bumblebee take on an uncharacteristically slow pace as they started on their route. Blitzwing opted not to say anything about it, though—it wasn’t worth the trouble. He had the fleeting thought that maybe Bumblebee was moving slowly on purpose, not wanting to reach Detroit too soon, but he shut that idea down and firmly decided it was ridiculous. Of course Bumblebee would want to return to his base, to his team, to that miniscule human pet they kept around. He’d been on and on about all of them for weeks now, why would he change his mind now?

Snow crunched beneath Blitzwing’s pedes as he took point, Bumblebee trailing behind him, almost sulky in his pace. The snow was incredibly wet, packing down under every step he took, soggy and ugly as it turned the ground to muck. And it was heavy, too, clinging to the bottoms of Blitzwing’s feet, small drops of water dripping from the treetops and landing on Blitzwing’s shoulders every so often. The silence was just as pressing, the snow muffling any sounds that weren’t the soft padding of Bumblebee’s pedes against the ground.

Blitzwing sighed after about ten minutes, warm air rushing out of his vents, and he turned his helm to glance at Bumblebee.

“You’re quiet today,” he noted.

Bumblebee jumped as if the acknowledgement had surprised him, and a peculiar grin spread across his face. Forced, almost, Blitzwing surmised.

“Just tired,” Bumblebee said with a one-shouldered shrug.

“Are you sure?” Blitzwing said, suddenly worried that perhaps the previous night’s cuddling had upset the little Autobot. “If something’s the matter, you can tell me.”

“I know,” Bumblebee said, kicking up a small pile of snow and watching it fall back the ground with a soft _plop._ “I’m just tired, really.”

“Did you sleep alright?”

Bumblebee’s vents hissed and stalled suddenly, and Blitzwing pretended not to notice, merely cocking his helm in anticipation of an answer. 

“Yeah,” Bumblebee said. “Must’ve slept in a weird position or something. Kinda stiff in the joints. Really, it’s fine. I swear.”

“Are you—”

“Blitzy.” Bumblebee took a few quick paces forward and put one of his small servos on Blitzwing’s arm, a sad sort of grin cascading over his face. “I’m good. Really. Stop worrying so much.”

Blitzwing sighed and nodded. He looked forward in an attempt to see anything other than nature, wondering just how close they were to Detroit, but all that filled his vision was filled with trees, trees, and more trees. He was really starting to hate trees.

* * *

Bumblebee was trying quite hard to act normally, not sure if he was frustrated or flattered that Blitzwing was able to pick up on his change of mood. _It’s not like I can help it_ , Bumblebee thought, trying to defend his actions silently for no one’s benefit but his own. _There’s nothing wrong with being sad about leaving a friend. It’s fine._

He zoned out for quite some time during their walk, watching the snow compress under his feet, holding onto his arms and shivering lightly as fat drops of melting snow landed on his helm and slid down his face. He wiped the water away without thinking, lost in thought, wishing he could think of a story to pass the time.

_I can’t believe Blitzwing is my friend_ , he thought moodily. _Is that even the right word for it? Man, Prime is gonna be so confused when I get back..._

Bumblebee was so deep in his own imagination that he walked directly into Blitzwing when the triple changer suddenly paused, his monocular twisting and extending. Bumblebee raised a brow, stepping forward.

“See something?” he asked.

“Yes,” Blitzwing said, optic narrowed as he stared into the distance at something Bumblebee couldn’t see. “There’s a rather large rock structure in our way.”

“How large is ‘rather large’?” Bumblebee said, peering forward.

“I can’t see it all,” Blitzwing said. “So, quite large.”

A strange spark of hope ignited in Bumblebee’s chest, and he poked at Blitzwing’s arm repeatedly. “So are we gonna be slowed down?” he asked, trying to contain his twisted excitement.

“Theoretically,” Blitzwing said, walking forward once again with Bumblebee following at his heels. “Though I think we should be able to climb over. I can judge better when we arrive.”

“Going around is easier!” Bumblebee pressed. “Right? At this point, I don’t really think it matters how long we take to get to Detroit, it’s been so long anyway, we can spare a couple of days, right?”

“I’m more worried about losing our course,” Blitzwing said firmly. “If we get offset from once again, who know where we’ll end up?”

“Detroit’s big! We’ll still see it even if we go off course a bit!” Bumblebee said. “Right?”

“Correct, but deviating from a path such as this could put us into contact with humans,” Blitzwing said. “And—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, no humans,” Bumblebee grumbled, waving a hand dismissively. “Let’s just see first, okay? You’re not exactly in good climbing shape right now.”

Blitzwing growled, his face spinning to red as he turned to glare at Bumblebee. “I can handle it, bug,” he snapped.

“And you call _me_ stubborn,” Bumblebee chuckled.

“I wouldn’t think that you’d _want_ to be delayed,” Blitzwing retorted snidely.

Bumblebee scowled, folding his arms. “I don’t!” he said, only half lying. “But I also don’t want you falling off a cliff and dying when we’re this close to Detroit! Kinda defeats the whole purpose of this entire ‘helping each other’ thing we’ve got going.”

_Whirr._ Blitzwing’s cold smirk lifted on his face. “Does it, now?” he mused.

“Yeah,” Bumblebee said shortly. “If you go offline and I get caught by Cons, and it turns out we’re, like, a mile from Detroit, I’m going to bring you back to life and then beat your aft.”

“Duly noted,” Blitzwing said. “It’s decided, then. We will examine the area thoroughly first.”

“Good.”

“And then climb over.”

“And then _decide_ whether to climb it or not!”

“Mhm. Of course.”

* * *

Blitzwing stared up at the cliff face before them, trying to theorize what it might look like on the other side. Bumblebee’s helm was tilted all the way up, his jaw slightly slack, and Blitzwing tried not to laugh as he leaned down and pressed a finger to the underside of Bumblebee’s chin to shut his mouth.

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Blitzwing said.

“I’m gonna stick with my idea of ‘we should go around,’” Bumblebee said, putting his servos on his hips. “It’s covered in snow!”

“The snow is melting.”

“Okay, it’s covered in snow _and_ water, then,” Bumblebee said. “So it’ll be wet _and_ slippery. Solid plan you have here, Blitzbrain.”

“It’s not that bad,” Blitzwing repeated, reaching out to touch the structure in front of them. The slope was rather shallow until about halfway up, at which point it grew steeper and steeper, reaching an angle that seemed only barely manageable for a healthy mech to climb, let alone one with a damaged leg. But Blitzwing was determined to climb over—he didn’t want to get of course, that was true, but he also wanted this ordeal to be over. He wanted a functioning t-cog, he wanted a leg that bent properly, and he wanted to drink oil more than once a week.

And on top of that, he wanted the strange twist in his tanks to go away, the one that had been building ever since they’d gotten on a straight course toward Detroit. He didn’t want to continue thinking about what was going to happen when the two had to go their separate ways. He wanted to just get it over with, rip off the bandage and deal with the outcomes, though apparently Bumblebee didn’t share the same mentality.

“It won’t slow us down too much to go around,” Bumblebee insisted, running a few yards to the left, his optics dancing over the rocks before them. “I mean—okay, maybe a little bit, I can’t actually see how long this is…”

“Neither can I,” Blitzwing said pointedly. “We could end up wildly off track. It’s less risky to go over.”

“Course-wise, yeah, but what if your leg gives out or something?” Bumblebee said, jogging back and securing his hands back on his hips. “It’s less risky, but it’s more dangerous.”

“Those words are synonyms, Bumblebee.”

“Nuh uh!”

“We’re going over,” Blitzwing said, not leaving any room for debate in his tone. “You want to get back to the Autobots as quickly as possible, correct?”

Blitzwing was surprised when Bumblebee paused before answering, a slight stammer lacing his voice. “Y-yeah,” Bumblebee said. “Right. As fast as possible.”

He didn’t seem thrilled with the development, and Blitzwing took the momentary silence as an opportunity to start up the shallowest slope he could find. Bumblebee’s hesitance only made him all the more determined to get over this obstruction and continue on their way to Detroit. The pointed skyline may be just beyond this cliff. And that was what he wanted… wasn’t it?

Blitzwing forced his processor to focus, his monocular spinning frantically, assessing every part of the ground that could be considered dangerous. As the ground began to tilt higher toward the sky, the ramp deepening with every step, Blitzwing glanced back at Bumblebee, keeping a servo on a rock in front of him.

“Doing alright?” he asked.

Bumblebee was staying rather far behind, his strides much smaller than Blitzwing’s and not as easily able to step over the more difficult chunks of terrain. But he seemed to be holding his own, slipping just slightly when Blitzwing spoke as if caught off guard.

“I’m fine,” Bumblebee said. “But I’d be _better_ if we went _around._ ”

Blitzwing sighed, tempted to give a snarky reply but holding back the urge. A fist of worry wrapped around his tanks—he hadn’t thought about how much more difficult it would be for Bumblebee to climb a ledge like this. His legs were shorter, limiting his ability to sidestep questionable patches of snow and rock, and Blitzwing bit his lip rather nervously.

“Are you sure?” he called. “If you come up here, you could ride on my back. It’ll be much easier for—”

“This was your stupid idea, Blitzbrain!” Bumblebee snapped, his anger much more potent than Blitzwing had expected. “I got it, okay?”

Blitzwing narrowed his optics, watching as Bumblebee clambered up a few more steps, his faceplates twisted in concentration. “I just want to make sure you don’t fall,” Blitzwing said, fighting back the crimson wave of annoyance that threatened to wash over his vision.

“I won’t,” Bumblebee spat. “I’m more worried about your bum leg giving out. Just hush, turn around, and climb. I’m _fine._ ”

Blitzwing huffed and turned back toward the rocks in front of him, his servo seeking out a good hold before pulling himself up a few more yards. It was extremely awkward, the angle too steep to walk on but slightly too flat to truly climb. Tufts of snow broke off from their heaps and tumbled past Blitzwing’s frame, wet puffs of white erupting where they landed. Blitzwing merely grumbled and continued his ungainly half-crawl toward the grey sky.

Bumblebee’s stubbornness was, somehow, his best and his worst quality all at once. Though Blitzwing couldn’t fault him too much for it—he wasn’t much different himself. He had insisted upon climbing, after all, and his reward for that was an annoyed Autobot muttering below him and an ache in his leg that stabbed sharper and sharper with every step. 

_Fantastic,_ Blitzwing thought bitterly. _My leg hurts. ...Maybe this wasn’t the best idea._

Blitzwing gritted his dentae the pursued, if more out of spite than anything else. Bumblebee was right—this was his idea. He had to see it through. He reached up for another rock and hauled himself up, a burst of agony suddenly exploding in his leg and sending his HUD alight with warnings. Blitzwing staggered and missed his target, grabbing a handful of snow and accidentally hurling it backwards in his haste to get a new grip. 

_Frag,_ he thought, dentae grinding together painfully, forcing himself to reach up and secure his servo on a stable rock.

Bumblebee yelped from somewhere below, and after a quiet _puff_ , he growled furiously. “Hey, moron!” he yelled. “Can you _not_ throw snow at me?”

“It was an accident,” Blitzwing mumbled.

“I can’t hear you, dumb aft!”

“I said,” Blitzwing growled, vision was suddenly obscured with red, “it was an _accident!_ ”

He grabbed another handful of snow and pitched it behind him, and Bumblebee cried out, another puff echoing through the air as snow collapsed on his helm. “Knock it off!” he snapped. “That slag is wet! And cold!”

“It’s snow,” Blitzwing yelled. “Of course it’s cold!”

“Just keep going! I have a bad feeling about this!”

“Oh, just like you had a ‘bad feeling’ about going north instead of south?” Blitzwing barked. 

“Shut your fragging mouth! We’re close to the city, you said it yourself!” Bumblebee’s vents were chugging out blast after blast of hot air, and he swung himself up to the next foothold, optics narrowed. “Just keep _going!_ This is not the time to be getting all mad!”

“I _am_ going!” Blitzwing kicked up to another large rock in fury, not properly judging the strain it would put on his leg, and he careened downwards, scrabbling for grip as his leg kicked uselessly for hold. Bumblebee shouted something that Blitzwing couldn’t hear over the sound of rocks and snow tumbling past him, and he managed to snag onto a tree, panting quietly as the red cleared from his vision and concentration took hold on him once again.

“Blitzwing!” Bumblebee yelled, anger gone and replaced by blatant worry. “You okay?”

Blitzwing took a moment to catch his breath, not responding, simply watching sharp pebbles fall loosely past his frame. He followed their path to the source, noticing that the tree he was holding onto had its roots almost completely exposed by the melting snow dripping past it.

Not good.

“Blitzy!” Bumblebee repeated. “Are—”

“Hush,” Blitzwing said, not daring to move, watching his fist tremble around the tree it was clutching.

“What’s wrong?” Bumblebee called, quiet scraping sounds indicating that he was moving. “Is it your leg? I _told_ you—”

“Stop moving,” Blitzwing ordered, and the scraping stopped abruptly. “How high up are we?”

“What?”

“Answer me,” Blitzwing said quickly, dread settling on his processor as a root popped free from the tree he was clinging to. A few loose rocks bounced past his frame once again, and he looked toward their source, watching a rock slide ominously down against a patch of slick snow, its foundation weakening by the second. His leg trembled feebly against the unsteady ledge it had found, pain getting sharper and sharper by the second, his knee bent at an angle that was bound to give any second.

“Um—maybe a few hundred feet?” Bumblebee said, his tone full of questions. “Why—”

“Get out from behind me, now,” Blitzwing said, trying to assess the situation as quickly as possible. Either this tree was going to uproot and send him sliding down hundreds of feet, possibly crashing directly into Bumblebee, or he was going to have to kick up and most certainly cause an avalanche. He stared at the tree, another root ripping out from the ground, the wood straining and bowing against his weight.

“What’s going on?” Bumblebee said. “You said don’t move!”

“I changed my mind!” Blitzwing yelled, panic ripping through his spark as his leg twitched hard, fighting against his desperation to stay still. The tree whined, more roots shredding from the ground and pelting Blitzwing’s face with flecks of dirt. “ _Move!_ ”

Blitzwing barely heard the sound of Bumblebee’s pedes shuffling around before his leg gave in to the pain, shifting without his permission and sending the unsteady rocks below it tumbling down. Bumblebee made a strangled sound of panic, and a loud _clank_ met Blitzwing’s audials with awful clarity.

“Bumblebee?” he called. “Frag—”

Blitzwing’s leg felt like it was on fire, and just as the tree he was holding onto uprooted entirely, he shoved himself upwards and clambered toward a more steady structure to his left. He spun around, praying that Bumblebee had gotten out of the way, his spark swelling with relief when he saw Bumblebee clinging to a small boulder, a rather large dent adorning his forehead.

“Are you alright?” Blitzwing panted, his leg dangling uselessly below him as he clung to the ground, digits shaking slightly as his equilibrium attempted to restabilize.

“You knocked a rock on my head,” Bumblebee said, his voice thick and fuzzy. “But, uh… I guess? Your… your leg.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Blitzwing huffed, all too aware of the clumps of snow that were raining more and more heavily from the spot he’d just evacuated. He reached a servo down as far as he could without losing his grip. “Climb up here. Quickly.”

Bumblebee’s optics took a few agonizingly long seconds to focus on Blitzwing. “Something’s falling,” he said rather stupidly.

“Yes,” Blitzwing said, shaking his hand insistently. “I knocked a lot of rocks loose. You need to get up here now before something else hits you.”

“Uh… right,” Bumblebee said, his voice slurred. He reached up to touch his forehead, thin strings of bright pink energon staining his fingertips. “Ow.”

“I can help fix you,” Blitzwing said, much faster, his stress mounting by the second as larger and larger rocks started to wriggle loose, their foundations crumbling beneath them. “But you have to come up here. Now.”

Bumblebee looked rather dazedly at his fingers, assessing them with far more curiosity than he should. “I don’t wanna,” he said.

“What?”

“Don’t wanna go back.”

“What are you—Bumblebee, get up here this instant!” A rock the size of Blitzwing’s fist tumbled past Bumblebee’s arm, bouncing hard and sloughing off thick bands of mud and snow with it. “You hit your head, and you’re not thinking straight. You need to come up here. _Now._ ”

“Oh,” Bumblebee said dumbly. “Right. Coming.”

He had no sooner taken a single step up when a thick sheet of muck and shale collapsed with a crack, sliding down the steep slope below it, ripping up shrubs and shoving heavy piles of snow out of its path. A thin tree splintered from its roots and crashed downwards, loosening more and more rocks as it thudded down the slope. Blitzwing swore and started to move toward Bumblebee, hand still outstretched, and only then did Bumblebee seem to understand the gravity of the situation. His optics flashed with fear as he started to scramble toward Blitzwing.

“That’s it,” Blitzwing breathed, forcing himself to ignore all of the pain in his leg, swiping away errors the second they blinked on his HUD. “Almost there, Bumblebee.”

“Don’t—”

Another massive slab of rock broke free from its grip on the ground, and Bumblebee screamed as it slid toward him, covering his helm in some reflexive attempt to protect himself. Blitzwing nearly fell over in his haste to reach Bumblebee, his spark squeezing painfully in his chest, but he was forced to dodge as a gargantuan boulder came smashing toward them both, nearly crushing his fingers into powder.

“Bumblebee!” he yelled, watching in sheer terror as a full on avalanche ensued just below his pedes, snow and mud and rocks and trees crumbling and crashing toward the flat earth so many hundreds of feet below them. Blitzwing only caught a glance of Bumblebee’s yellow frame before he was completely obscured by grey and brown, falling as uncontrollably as the rockslide around them.

“Frag!” Blitzwing shouted, vaulting himself toward a tree that would most likely support him, weighing his options as rapidly as possible. If he went down now, his chances of catching Bumblebee were slim to none, and he might get entangled and damaged in the landslide as well. But if he kept waiting, Bumblebee might be too buried and dented to repair.

“ _Frag!_ ” Blitzwing shouted again, arms shaking wildly as he clung to his tree for dear life. “Frag, frag, _frag!_ Bumblebee!”

He had no choice but to wait it out, his entire frame trembling as he watched the ledge disintegrate, rock after rock crashing down toward wherever Bumblebee had fallen. Blitzwing squeezed his optics shut, praying that by some miracle, Bumblebee had been conscious enough to shield himself, to protect himself from a majority of the damage. 

_Frag, frag it all, this is all my fault—!_

The landslide must have only lasted a few minutes, but it felt like hours against Blitzwing’s audials, the incomprehensible sound of thousands of rocks slamming into one another, slick with snow and impossible to stop or even slow down. When an eerie silence finally rang out, Blitzwing peeled his optics open, his monocular zipping around the distant rubble desperately.

“Bumblebee?” he yelled. “Bumblebee—oh, frag it.”

Blitzwing didn’t even think before letting go of the tree he’d been clinging to, throwing himself across freshly unearthed mud for what seemed like ages before he came to a stop. His leg seared with pain as he scrambled upright, leaping toward the pile that had formed at the base of the ledge, looking for any traces of yellow.

“Bumblebee?” he called, throwing aside massive handfuls of mud and rock. “Bumblebee!”

His vision blurring with red, Blitzwing screamed in anger, hurling aside piles upon piles of debris. 

This was his fault. All of this time together, all of this travel, all of what they’d been through, and this is how their journey was going to end?

“Bumblebee!”

The only mech that had ever listened to Blitzwing, the only one that had ever cared about him, and he’d just buried him under a landslide because he was too stubborn to go off course—

“Bumblebee, you stupid fragging insect, if you don’t show up _right now—!_ ”

Blitzwing leaned down and lifted a rock into his arms, screaming and flinging it so hard that it knocked over a tree somewhere in the distance with an echoing crash.

“Bumblebee!”

_I’m so sorry,_ Blitzwing thought desperately. _Please, just be okay, let me find you._

Blitzwing lifted another rock, his processor pounding, face aching, leg throbbing, and was about to hurl it in a fit of rage when he saw something on it—a tiny, almost invisible streak of yellow. He gasped, a chill running down his spinal strut as he pitched the rock out of the way, digging through a seemingly endless pile of mud before his fingers brushed against something smooth— _metal._

“Bumblebee?” he gasped, spraying dirt everywhere in a frenzied attempt to uncover what he had touched. A few seconds of digging revealed an incredibly damaged arm, almost all of the paint scraped away, dents peppering the once-smooth surface. But Blitzwing was too preoccupied to care about cosmetic damages—he grabbed onto Bumblebee’s arm and wrenched him upwards, freeing his limp frame from the ground and cradling him in his arms.

“Bumblebee,” he said again, looking over his frame. Bumblebee’s optics were half shut, the light behind them flickering but evident, a large crack in his chest revealing that his spark was still alight with life. Blitzwing’s face ached again, tucking Bumblebee tightly to his frame and rushing away from the ledge, charging toward any shred of shelter he might find.

“You’re okay, Bumblebee,” he said, not caring if he got a response. “You’re okay. I’m going to fix you, alright? You fixed me before.”

Blitzwing didn’t know how he was going to manage that without Bumblebee’s stingers, but he was far too preoccupied to care about logistics. No matter what it took, he’d make sure Bumblebee would be alright. No matter what.


	20. Chapter 20

A single thought reverberated in Blitzwing’s processor, driving every one of his circuits to move on pure, primal instinct: _get Bumblebee somewhere safe._ Blitzwing didn’t even stop to consider that he should be heading west, or at least try to follow a path that could be traced back to their course toward Detroit. He simply ran with Bumblebee’s frame clutched to his chest, looking for any shred of shelter, anything that would protect Bumblebee from the elements.

The sun was still hanging rather high, streaming thin grey light through the wilderness, and Blitzwing took a moment to silently curse the sun for shining so warmly. He wanted to blame Bumblebee’s fall on the thawing dirt on the ledge, making it soft and malleable, but he couldn’t shake the horrible knowledge that this was his fault. He knew it was, but he forced himself not to be consumed by guilt. Bumblebee needed his help, and he had to find a way to provide it. Guilt could wait.

Blitzwing sighed in audible relief as a small, eroded formation in the side of the ledge came into view, far from the rubble of the earlier landslide. Blitzwing raised an arm to the nook’s ceiling and whacked on it a few times, ensuring over and over that it wouldn’t collapse. Only after a solid ten hits was he satisfied, and he pressed his frame against the back of the cave, spreading Bumblebee ever so gently across his lap.

“Bumblebee?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and rusty, full of nerves.

Bumblebee didn’t respond, his optics weakly flickering beneath partially closed lids, a few sparks spitting out of his mouth amongst a hiss of static and stiff hydraulics. Blitzwing tried not to move him too much as he examined the damage across his frame—one of his tires was shredded into ribbons, his once-repaired arm split open and leaking thick black oil, windshield shattered, a large crack in his chest revealing frazzled, mud-clogged circuitry and the throbbing light of his spark. Blitzwing hissed quietly to himself, fingers hovering over Bumblebee’s frame, not sure what to do. His cannons twitched on his back, as if hoping they could produce enough heat to weld some of the bigger cracks shut, but they were still as offline as they’d been the last time he checked.

 _Even if I knew how to repair anything, my fingers are too big to get into all of his little circuits,_ Blitzwing thought bitterly, pulling his servos back. _Dammit, Bumblebee! Why do you have to be so small?_

Tempting as it was to try and do repairs, Blitzwing knew he was more likely to damage everything further than to provide any help. He swallowed, clenching his servos into fists above Bumblebee’s frame, his vision blurring with red for a moment before slipping back to icy fear. Something strange tugged at his spark, a weird urge to feel an emotion that lurked somewhere out of his reach, and Blitzwing had to mentally force himself not to address it. There were more important things to focus on that his obnoxious emotional range.

“I’m sorry, Bumblebee,” he whispered, lifting Bumblebee’s helm and tucking a servo underneath it, hoping the comfortable angle would at least do _something._ “Please, just… wake up.”

Blitzwing wasn’t sure why his spark was clutched with such desperation for Bumblebee to be okay. He shouldn’t care. Bumblebee was just a whiny, talkative Autobot. Megatron would be thrilled if Blitzwing returned with the offline helm of an Autobot on a stick, awarding him the highest of honors, praising him and no doubt driving Lugnut up a wall with jealousy. But for some reason, the thought alone made Blitzwing’s tanks churn.

Blitzwing winced as his face began to ache, his emotions rolling around like a tide in his processor, and he stared intently at Bumblebee’s spark, reminding himself over and over that as long as that spark was alight, Bumblebee was online.

He brushed a digit over each of Bumblebee’s optics, closing his lids fully, surmising that a little extra darkness might help him rest better. Self-repair wouldn’t do much for damages this severe, but it was all Blitzwing could rely on. One servo still cradling Bumblebee’s helm, Blitzwing used his smallest digit to brush away mud and rocks from Bumblebee’s frame. It wasn’t much, but Blitzwing felt better knowing that, at the very least, it was something.

* * *

Everything hurt. Bumblebee felt like he’d been trampled by a herd of hippopotamuses. Or maybe it was elephants. He couldn’t remember which of the two Sari had said were the really big ones. Regardless, every circuit in Bumblebee’s frame ached as if he had been bent the wrong way ten times over, his joints stiff, armor crushing against circuits and sensors that were definitely not supposed to be pressed on. Bumblebee tried and failed to speak, his optical receptors attempting to come online before a stream of warning errors spat across his HUD, his vision remaining dark. 

His audials whined and beeped irritably as he tried to reset them, a few distant and muffled sounds making their way into his processor. What was that? Where was he, anyway? What had happened? His optics darted around uselessly as he tried to recognize any of the confusing input being hurled at his sensory net. 

“Stop.” A sudden voice made its way into Bumblebee’s audials just as they came back online, and he cried out in a hiss of static, tasting smoke and energon across his glossa. He coughed a few times, his sensors suddenly recognizing foreign bodies under his plating and trying to expel them, his frame jerking violently as it tried to shake everything out of the delicate circuitry. Something dense and sharp rattled under his plating, and his vocalizer expelled more static as he clawed at the spot anxiously.

“Stop,” the same voice repeated, much more firmly, and Bumblebee felt a large servo press very carefully on his chest, tapping it ever so gently. “Don’t move. Where is it?”

Bumblebee wordlessly grabbed at his chest, a digit slipping under the plating. He immediately began to panic when he felt an eruption of pain around his digit, touching parts of his frame that were definitely supposed to be left untouched. His vents gaped frantically and his vocalizer spouted a stream of static as he tried to ask: _What’s going on?_

“Don’t kick,” the voice said again, pressing down on his chest, just enough to calm Bumblebee’s frenzied processor. “And don’t talk. Just sit very still, I’ll get it for you if you promise to stop fidgeting.”

Bumblebee gargled out a staticky protest before nodding, his optics still trying and failing to come online, endless errors coating his HUD, coating his thoughts in scarlet. There was so much input tackling Bumblebee’s processor that he didn’t even have time to think about who was talking to him, why he felt so warm in the winter, or even what had happened at all. He merely trembled nervously as two large digits slipped under his plating, quiet reassurances swirling around Bumblebee’s audials, incomprehensible but soothing nonetheless.

Something scraped inside Bumblebee’s chest, and he emitted a fuzzy whimper as the digits withdrew, something small and hard tapping against his chest.

“Just another rock,” the voice said softly. “Apologies, I thought I got them all. This one must’ve been lodged in there quite far.” 

Bumblebee felt strangely calmed by the speaker’s tone, and he nodded weakly before coughing up more static and pointing to his optics questioningly. The large servo moved to his arm, lowering it back to Bumblebee’s side.

“Don’t move,” the voice reminded him, its tone almost amused. “Optical receptors are very delicate, and a fall like that was sure to shake something loose. Just rest. Self repair will take care of anything I can’t.”

 _Fall?_ Bumblebee tried to speak, his vocalizer sputtering in and out, catching all of the wrong sorts of words before fading into thick bursts of static once again.

“—you mean by—happened? I—going on—”

“I told you to stop talking,” the voice said, sharper and more irritated now, the hand slipping down to Bumblebee’s and squeezing it firmly. A strange whirring sound made it past Bumblebee’s audials, and he looked around blankly a few times, wondering where it had come from.

“You need to save your strength,” the voice said, collected and soft once again. “I mean that. I know it may be hard to resist blowing more static at me, but you need to rest.”

Bumblebee’s digits shifted around weakly, feeling the servo wrapped around his own, tracing the bulky knuckles, the scraped palm, the thick fingers, the soft mesh beneath the seams of the joints. Something about it felt so familiar, incredibly familiar, and Bumblebee felt his optics shifting around, trying to see and confirm his suspicions. It took a few tries to get his vocalizer to make any comprehensible sound, but after a few long seconds of static, Bumblebee feebly managed a single syllable. 

“—wing?”

The servo tightened a tiny bit, warm and surprisingly soft despite its overall roughness, and Bumblebee felt the warm ground beneath him tremble just slightly. Weird.

“Yes,” Blitzwing said, his voice low and strangely tense. “I’m right here, Bumblebee. And you need to rest. I will be here when you wake up again, I promise.”

Immeasurable relief washed over Bumblebee’s frame, drowning out all of the pain and overwhelming HUD errors for a moment, and he nodded languidly, sinking down into the heat surrounding him, his vents drawing in sharp, deep breaths.

“Am—going—die?” Bumblebee managed. 

Blitzwing’s fingers laced in between Bumblebee’s, his grip as firm as it was soothing. “No,” he said. “Though if you keep overusing your vocalizer, as usual, I may just have to kill you.”

Bumblebee choked out a strangled sort of chuckle, holding onto Blitzwing’s servo as tightly as he could. 

“Th—ank,” Bumblebee tried, his voice garbled and barely understandable. “—you.”

“Stop _talking_ , Bumblebee,” Blitzwing said, though it was impossible not to hear the smile lacing his tone. “You’re welcome. Now _rest._ ”

Bumblebee nodded, and the second his optics fluttered closed, his HUD shut down once again, his processor snapping into stasis like a light switch flicking off.

* * *

The sun rose and fell once, twice, and Blitzwing refused to move the entire time. Bumblebee hadn’t yet emerged from stasis, though his digits remained firmly intertwined amongst Blitzwing’s. Blitzwing spent every moment listening to the hum of his vents, watching the rhythm of his gently pulsing spark, ensuring that his state didn’t get any worse than it already was. 

Bumblebee’s frame hissed strangely every so often, likely the aftereffects of his self repair protocols attempting to fix whatever they could, but Blitzwing nearly jumped out of his plating every time it happened. Any sound that was out of the ordinary made his frame wind up as tight as it would go, fear gripping him like a vice, but Bumblebee remained relatively stable.

Or, at least, Blitzwing thought so. He was no medic, and well aware of it. Fixing damages on the fly was one thing, but a massive full-body destruction was far beyond his repertoire of hasty medical skills.

Which was why he nearly had a spark attack when Bumblebee’s frame creaked loudly and shifted, his vents chugging clouds of thick grey smoke into the air. Blitzwing let go of Bumblebee’s servo, face aching, and he put his own servos into the air as if touching Bumblebee at all may turn him to dust.

“Bumblebee?” he ask tightly, waving wisps of smoke out of his vision. “Are you alright?”

Bumblebee’s vocalizer clicked a few times, and Blitzwing felt his chest tighten—the classic sound of a resetting vocalizer. Bumblebee was awake. And trying to speak. Blitzwing would have laughed had the situation not been so dire, but he simply watched Bumblebee, still oddly afraid to touch him.

The fuzzy sound of static and obnoxiously loud clicking echoed around the cave for a while, and Blitzwing stared as Bumblebee’s lips formed silent words, then frowned. More clicking ensued.

“Take your time, Bumblebee,” Blitzwing said, swallowing hard. “We have all the time in the world.”

Bumblebee’s lips twitched into a brief smile before settling back into a neutral expression, all sound ceasing immediately, his vents sighing and slowing. Blitzwing’s optics automatically darted down to the exposed sliver of Bumblebee’s spark, relieved when he saw its light pulsing on normally.

He sighed, helm dropping to the wall behind him. False alarm.

* * *

The third time Bumblebee awoke, he somehow felt worse than he had the last two times, his vents pulling in cold, ragged breaths as his HUD flooded with familiar crimson error messages. His processor spun as he attempted to decipher everything happening to him at once, self repair nanites darting all across his frame, focusing primarily on his internal systems and his… vocalizer?

 _Vocalizer,_ Bumblebee thought immediately, ignoring the warnings about the rather dire state of his system shutdowns. None of that mattered. He opened his mouth, hot sparks scattering across his glossa as he reset his vocalizer over and over and over.

“Stop that,” Blitzwing’s voice said from somewhere above him. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Bumblebee stuck his glossa out irritably in the direction of Blitzwing’s voice before trying his vocalizer again. And again. And again. Smoke began to pour out of his mouth, and Bumblebee suddenly hacked loudly, his intake pipes feeling alarmingly tense.

“Bumblebee?” Blitzwing’s voice said, sounding alarmed. Bumblebee ignored him, fighting past the pain and rolling onto his stomach, bracing himself on his hands and knees as his intake flared wide, his back arching hard. Bumblebee winced at the terrible grinding sound he made as a pile of finely ground dirt and gravel came flying out of his mouth, and he reset his vocalizer hopefully, listening as the clicking morphed into static, then into words.

“—that, I must’ve swallowed some dirt or something… ow, _frag._ ” He looked up, optical receptors still offline, but he grinned regardless. “Hey, awesome! Voice! I—ow—”

Bumblebee flopped down onto his chest, the excitement of having a functioning vocalizer dampened by the explosions of pain igniting all across his frame, and he groaned, grabbing onto his helm. His vision sputtered in and out a few times, barely catching glimpses of beige and purple all around him, but he hurt too much to bother feeling embarrassed about hacking dirt all over what appeared to be Blitzwing’s lap.

A large servo descended onto Bumblebee’s back, lifting up hesitantly for a split second before settling between his shoulders. “How exactly does one swallow that much dirt?” Blitzwing asked quietly.

Bumblebee laughed, the sound coming out more like a dying animal than real laughter, but the sentiment was still there. “Is that what’s important right now?” he wheezed, pushing on his temples desperately, trying to massage the ache away. “Holy frag, Blitzwing—this hurts. Bad.”

“Just relax,” Blitzwing said, his large digits tracing the edges of Bumblebee’s plating, their movements oddly soothing. “Tensing up will only make you hurt more. Can you see?”

Bumblebee whimpered quietly and attempted to online his optics, managing to cling to vision for a few seconds before everything went dark again. “Almost,” he said through gritted dentae. “Who knew coughing up a bunch of dirt would—ow—be good for me?”

“If you hadn’t tried to talk so much with a vocalizer full of gravel, self repair could be taking care of more important things right now,” Blitzwing said, clearly amused.

Bumblebee hissed angrily, digits trembling as he squeezed his temples. “Shut up,” he said. “How long have I been out?”

“Four days.”

“ _Four—?!_ ”

“No need to panic,” Blitzwing said, his servos wrapping around Bumblebee’s waist and turning him onto his side. “What matters now is how you’re feeling. What errors are you getting?”

“Um…” Bumblebee tried to wade through the mess of errors clouding his HUD before shrugging weakly. “All of them?”

“Impossible. You’d be dead.”

“Well, I don’t really want to sit here and read all of them,” Bumblebee grumbled, trying his vision again, his optics flashing online for a few more seconds before snapping him back into darkness. “A lot. Main ones I can see are, uh… my arm’s fragged, big crack in the chest, lots of stuff rattling around under my plating. Ugh… I feel like a maraca.”

“A… what?”

“It’s like this instrument that you shake, and it sort of—nevermind. Not really important.” Bumblebee focused intently on his optics, testing them one more time, his vision blinking on and off briefly before finally coming fully online. He smiled widely, blinking a few times to clear away smears of dirt. Everything was rather blurry, but it was easy to focus on Blitzwing’s bright red monocular, his single red optic shimmering with concern.

“Hi,” Bumblebee whispered.

Blitzwing’s lips twitched up into an almost-smile, the biggest one Bumblebee had seen. “Hello,” he said quietly.

“Um… so… what exactly happened?” Bumblebee asked, looking down at his frame, dismayed now that he could finally see the state of his damages. “Oh, Primus, is that my spark? I can _see_ my _spark._ That can’t be good.”

“What matters is that you’re awake,” Blitzwing said, surprisingly firm. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Bumblebee thought hard, trying not to focus on the servo gently pressed against his back, the fingers shaking almost imperceptibly. Had Blitzwing really been scared? For him? “I, uh… we were climbing that ledge,” Bumblebee said, sifting through his memory files. “You were yelling at me to move, and then a big rock flew at my helm, and then, uh, that’s pretty much it. Then I woke up and my whole frame felt like it was getting sucked into a black hole.”

Blitzwing shifted rather nervously, his servo moving away from Bumblebee’s back and coming to a rest on his lap. “Yes,” he said. “About that. Your fall, it was… my fault.”

Bumblebee cocked his helm, wincing as his neck made a revolting popping sound. “My fall?” he asked. “And how is it your fault that I fell?”

“I overestimated how easy it would be to scale the ledge,” Blitzwing mumbled, optics downcast. “My leg began to give—”

“Ha!” Bumblebee grinned weakly. “Told you so.”

Blitzwing growled, his face spinning to red with a _whirr_. “I feel bad enough as is, bug,” he hissed. “Yes, you told me so. My leg began to give, and I was forced to take a risky jump, kicking a rock onto your helm. The ground was weak from the melting snow, and the sudden movement caught an avalanche that you ended up in. _Happy?_ ”

Bumblebee shrugged, lifting a servo slowly and testing how well his fingers could bend. “Not really _happy_ , no,” he said plainly. “But that’s not _your_ fault. Dummy.”

Blitzwing’s face spun back to blue, looking rather surprised. “What?”

“I mean, the ground was all wet and slippery as is,” Bumblebee said, reaching up to rub his optics and grimacing in pain. “Ow. But that’s not your fault, you were just trying to get us to Detroit as fast as possible. I can’t exactly be mad about that.”

“But—” Blitzwing looked flabbergasted, and it took a lot of strength for Bumblebee not to snicker at his expression. “But you said it would be unsafe, and I insisted! And I knocked over the rocks, and—”

“Blitzy.” Bumblebee gave Blitzwing as stern of a look as he could manage. “You were just trying to help. Everyone frags up every once in a while. And I’m not dead, right? No harm, no foul. ...Sorta. I can’t really feel my left pede, so no harm there.”

“Your sensors are likely fried,” Blitzwing pointed out.

“Whatever,” Bumblebee said with a small grin. “I’m alive, okay? I’m fine. And yeah, you knocked an avalanche onto me, but it’s not your _fault._ Seriously. It’s okay.”

“That is the very definition of something being ‘my fault,’” Blitzwing said darkly.

“Okay, again, _whatever,_ ” Bumblebee said, exasperated. “So, it is your fault, then. Are you sorry?”

Blitzwing seemed to hesitate before nodding, optics cast downward once again. “Yes,” he said. “Very.”

“Then I forgive you,” Bumblebee said. “And now we’re good.”

The corners of Blitzwing’s lips twitched upwards for a brief moment before his usual cold frown returned. “Thank you,” he murmured.

Bumblebee grinned, closing his optics, picking through his error messages one by one. “I’m gonna read these out to you, then, and you tell me what the deal is, okay?” he said, forcing his voice to be bright despite how much it ached to talk.

“You’re going to strain your voice box,” Blitzwing said with a roll of the optics.

“Yeah? What else is new?” Bumblebee winked and focused on his HUD once again. “Okay, so, ‘servo functionality critical’ seems pretty self explanatory.”

Bumblebee looked down at his mangled, oil-crusted arm, attempting to move his fingers and yelping as pain stabbed deep into his sensory net. “Okay, yeah, ‘critical’ is right,” he muttered. “My fuel’s really low, too. I lost about… Primus, half of my reserves? That’s not good at all.”

“Surely there’s somewhere along the way where we can get more fuel,” Blitzwing said. 

“Probably,” Bumblebee said. He continued to read off error messages simply to have something to talk about, trying to distract himself from the thought that had been nagging him from the moment he’d opened his optics.

There were footsteps entering this little nook, yet not a single one going out. No footsteps, no scuffs, not a single trace of any moment. Blitzwing had been sitting here with Bumblebee in his lap for four days straight, not moving a piston, simply waiting for him to wake up.

 _He could have ditched you_ , Bumblebee thought over and over. _He could have left you here to die and he didn’t. He didn’t even try. For four entire days._

Bumblebee hoped the warm glow in his spark was only a feeling and not something that could be seen through the crack in his chest. Now didn’t seem like quite the time to explain why, despite his frame being almost entirely incapable of moving on its own, he somehow still felt happy.

* * *

Blitzwing attempted a few times to help Bumblebee to stand, predicting the inevitable sulking far before Bumblebee was willing to admit that he could not, in fact, support his own weight. Bumblebee had argued quite belligerently, falling flat on his face multiple times before eventually giving in and allowing himself to be placed back on Blitzwing’s lap, a deep pout etched into his dented features.

The little Autobot was quieter than usual, but Blitzwing decided not to press the matter, simply watching in silence as Bumblebee sorted through his errors, muttering to himself every so often. Blitzwing vaguely wondered how he could see at all, given how long it took for Bumblebee to finally sigh in relief and close his optics.

“Done,” Bumblebee said, leaning back against Blitzwing’s stomach, looking rather woozy. Blitzwing cocked a helm curiously.

“Feeling alright?” he asked softly.

“About as good as I can be right now,” Bumblebee muttered, his digits clenching slightly around his leaky arm. “I’m really tired, though.”

“Understandable,” Blitzwing said. “You should rest. It will be the healthiest thing for your system right now.”

Bumblebee nodded, his vents hissing and sparking a few times as he inhaled deeply. “I know,” he said. “But… we really should start moving again soon.”

Blitzwing’s glossa suddenly felt too large for his mouth, and he readjusted his gaze to the light snowfall outside. It was still mid-afternoon, but the air had a biting chill to it once again, a thin dusting of snow starting to coat the ground. 

“I know,” Blitzwing said.

“I… Sari’s Allspark key,” Bumblebee said, his voice fragile as glass. “And Ratchet. They’re pretty much my best bets right now. My stingers won’t even work, and even if they did, this is way too much damage for me to take care of. I mean, your leg keeps busting, my arm broke open again—clearly, I wasn’t forged to be a medic.”

The Allspark key. Blitzwing had completely forgotten about it. That strange human pet they kept had a key with the power of the Allspark trapped within it. Bumblebee’s repairs would be quick work if he made it back to the Autobots safely. Though the thought of that made Blitzwing’s intake slightly tight, and he coughed quietly to relax it enough to speak.

“True,” he said, not able to think of anything else to say.

“And then you can get back to the Decepticons and everything,” Bumblebee said, his voice falsely encouraging. “Back to… the way things were.”

Blitzwing’s intake constricted again. “True,” he said again.

They sat in silence for a long time, so long that Blitzwing thought Bumblebee may have fallen asleep. He looked down, watching the steady stream of air push in and out of Bumblebee’s vents, wondering whether he was awake or not.

Bumblebee had forgiven him. After causing an avalanche, nearly killing him, sitting uselessly for four whole days, Bumblebee had still forgiven him without a second thought. Blitzwing felt strangely comforted by the simply gesture, wondering what exactly it was in Bumblebee that made him so willing to accept a mistake, to move past it with a smile on his face. He had so many questions for the Autobot, so many things he wanted to know, and so very little time to explore all of it. 

_No harm in asking just one,_ Blitzwing told himself. He swallowed, searching for his most burning question as he brushed a digit over Bumblebee’s shoulder.

“Bumblebee?” he asked quietly. “Are you awake?”

“Hm?” Bumblebee’s optics opened a sliver, his helm tilting up slowly, his expression drowsy but inviting nonetheless. “Uh huh. What’s up?”

“I have a question.”

Bumblebee cocked his helm a tiny bit, and even through heavily lidded optics, Blitzwing could still see the flash of warmth behind them. “Fire away, Blitzbrain,” Bumblebee said.

“You said… after that rock hit your helm, you said you didn’t want to go back,” Blitzwing said.

Bumblebee’s optics widened just slightly, shifting around a little before settling back on Blitzwing’s. “I… did?” he said in a tiny voice.

“Yes.”

“Out loud?”

“No. I read your mind.”

“Right,” Bumblebee muttered. “I, um… okay. That’s not really a question, though.”

“Why don’t you want to go back?” Blitzwing blurted, forcing himself to hold Bumblebee’s gaze. Tempting as it was to look away, Bumblebee’s optics were constantly full of emotion, and Blitzwing hated to miss a single second of it. Especially right now.

“I—” Bumblebee paused, staring into Blitzwing’s optics deeply as if searching for the answer within them. “I… don’t know.”

Blitzwing nodded, examining Bumblebee’s optics closely. Even with his paint nearly scraped off and his frame dented to hell and back, Bumblebee’s optics were as blue as ever, cool and warm all at the same time. Blitzwing didn’t even notice himself leaning down a tiny bit, hoping to get a closer look.

“Do _you_ want to go back?” Bumblebee asked.

Blitzwing shook his helm without moving his optics. “No,” he said softly.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Bumblebee’s lip twitched a few times, and he nodded almost imperceptibly. “So we’re on the same page, then,” he said, barely audible, as quiet as the snow falling outside their cave.

“I suppose we are.”

Blitzwing looked at Bumblebee for a long time, looking at every wire visible behind the glass of his optics, the thin lines of light that curled in and amongst each other, bluer than anything Blitzwing had ever seen. Bumblebee gazed back, his focus lingering on Blitzwing’s single optic, barely pausing even to blink.

“Blitzwing?” Bumblebee broke the silence after what could have been either seconds or hours—Blitzwing wasn’t sure.

“Yes?”

Bumblebee stared up at Blitzwing for a few more moments, his lips parting just slightly before he suddenly looked down, optics closing tightly. “I’m... kind of tired.”

Blitzwing swallowed hard and nodded. “Of course,” he said. “Will you be alright to sleep on my lap?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright then.”

“...Night, Blitzbrain. And… um…” Bumblebee fidgeted for a few moments, his movements small, almost nervous. “...Thanks.”

Blitzwing was glad Bumblebee couldn’t see the smile lifting on his face. “Anytime, Bumblebee,” he said quietly.


	21. Chapter 21

“Shut up! Get off me! I got it this time!”

“I seriously doubt that, Bumblebee.”

“Bite me!”

_Whirr._ “Oh, don’t tempt me! I will!”

Bumblebee took a deep breath as Blitzwing cackled maniacally, pushing himself away from the wall and bending his shaky knees, forcing them to straighten. He slowly moved himself into a crumpled but technically upright position, his HUD igniting with errors that he angrily swiped away even as his hard drives spun all out of whack.

“I got this,” he muttered, more to himself than anything. He could practically feel Blitzwing’s smirk against his plating as he managed to stand up, raising his arms slowly with victorious glee. “See?” he said proudly. “I—”

Bumblebee yelped as a horde of red warnings smashed across his vision, and his knees promptly gave out, sending him crashing face-first into the ground. He groaned angrily and started to try and pick himself up, only to feel a large digit press into his back, holding him down, a quiet _whirr_ preceding a badly concealed snicker.

“It’s been two days, Bumblebee,” Blitzwing said, his voice full of tightly controlled amusement. “You said it yourself. We need to get you back to Detroit. Your injuries are far beyond what self-repair can handle.”

Bumblebee wriggled around a little bit, craning his neck so he could give Blitzwing his best glare. “I’m fine!” he insisted. “I’m just a little sore, that’s all! I can walk by myself, just let me practice a few more times!”

“Recent attempts have proven otherwise.”

Bumblebee grumbled, struggling against Blitzwing’s grip as much as he could. Which wasn’t all that much. His self-repair protocols were apparently far too focused on ensuring that Bumblebee didn’t bleed out internally that minor things, such as motor function, were deemed unimportant. It was a miracle that Bumblebee wasn’t leaking oil from his audials, but regardless, being unable to do much else other than lay perfectly still was _fragging annoying._

_Whirr._ Bumblebee’s spark sank when he saw a large scarlet grin crack Blitzwing’s face in half, an eager sort of wiggle making his scarred wings flutter up and down.

“I still think my suggestion is good to go,” Blitzwing said, optics flashing mischievously.

“Absolutely not,” Bumblebee said firmly, rolling onto his back and pointing a digit at Blitzwing’s smiling face. “No. You are not _carrying_ me. Your leg is still bad! And we’re, like, super close to Detroit! You can’t just walk into a big city, carrying a busted up Autobot! Do you have any idea what people would think?”

“It’d be like a movie!” Blitzwing said with an excited giggle, planting his servos firmly on his hips and puffing his chest out. “I’ll be the action hero, and we can blow things up behind me so I can walk away from the explosion! Wouldn’t that be cool? Wouldn’t it? _Wouldn’t it?_ ”

“Blitzbrain, they’re going to think _you_ beat the slag out of me,” Bumblebee insisted. “Think about it! We’ve been alone in the middle of nowhere for _months!_ If the Autobots see you carrying me—”

“It’ll look so romantic,” Blitzwing cooed. 

“No!” Bumblebee screamed, his voice raising an octave without his permission, vocalizer hitching and stalling for a moment. He cleared his intake and tried again. “No, not that! They’re gonna think you—you—I don’t know, that you tried to kill me or something!”

“No, no, no,” Blitzwing cackled. “If I tried to kill you, I’d take you to Megatron for prizes! The Autobots should know that.”

“Gee, thanks,” Bumblebee muttered. “But I had a point here! No _carrying_ me! I’m not a sparkling!”

_Whirr._ Blitzwing smirked, monocular glimmering. “You’re not much bigger than one,” he said snidely.

“Shut _up,_ Blitzbrain!” Bumblebee shouted. “I’m not _small_ and you’re not _carrying me!_ ”

_Whirr._ Blitzwing’s jagged grin stretched wide once again, and he leaned down to Bumblebee’s level. “Alrighty then,” he said brightly. “If you can dodge me, I’ll let you walk by yourself.”

“ _Dodge_ you?” Bumblebee said, exasperated, his armor tightening. “What are you gonna do, shoot me? Oh—wait.” He smirked a little. “My bad. Your cannons are offline.”

Bumblebee didn’t even have a chance to stop smiling before a massive pede was swinging toward his helm. He shrieked and threw himself to the ground, his arm making an awful crunching sound as he attempted to shield himself. But just as quickly as Blitzwing’s pede had moved, it came to a hard stop centimeters from Bumblebee’s faceplates, so close that he could feel the heat emanating from it.

Bumblebee’s optics pried open—when had he even closed them?—and he sighed as Blitzwing’s giggle filled the air.

“Nice try,” Blitzwing said happily, leaning down and gathering Bumblebee into his arms. “But too bad for you! And stop kicking me, it’s very rude.”

“You could have _killed_ me,” Bumblebee grumbled, submitting to his fate and folding his arms, ignoring the angry errors being pinged from the sensors in his arm.

_Whirr._ “I’ve been stuck with you for far too long to kill you now,” Blitzwing said, his voice harsh and chilly, though the thin grin lifting his faceplates was impossible to ignore. “Are you comfortable?”

“No,” Bumblebee lied, trying not to enjoy how careful Blitzwing was being with his demolished frame, his touch soft and gentle despite the gnarled roughness of his servos. “I don’t _like_ being carried.”

_Whirr._ “Complain _one more time_ and I’ll leave you for _scrap_ , you insolent pest,” Blitzwing snarled.

Bumblebee shifted around, sticking his lower lip out. “No, you won’t.”

“ _Is that a challenge, Autobot?_ ”

“ _No!_ Frag off, it was a joke, you aft!”

* * *

Bumblebee hadn’t realized just how severe Blitzwing’s limp had gotten until every step was jostling him directly, the air hissing in and out of Blitzwing’s vents harsh and fast. Blitzwing’s whole frame dipped with the shifting of his weight, his leg creaking so ominously that Bumblebee spent every second fearing that it might break clean off.

Not that he dared comment on it. It was lucky that they could make any progress at all, albeit slowly. The forest around them occasionally thinned, the sounds of civilization echoing from a distance, forcing them to change routes over and over to hide from whatever humans may be venturing into the woods. Even worse, the setback to get around the ledge that had nearly taken Bumblebee offline packed at least a half day onto their timeline, not to mention the five days Bumblebee had spent unable to move.

Bumblebee sighed quietly as he thought about it, not surprised to see Blitzwing glance down at him, cocking his helm curiously.

“Is there a problem?” Blitzwing said curiously.

“Not really,” Bumblebee muttered. “Just… you know, kinda hard to relax when you’re limping like crazy.”

“I’m _so sorry_ ,” Blitzwing snapped, his face spinning to a sneering red. “I’ll try to stop being in _pain_ on your behalf.”

“Thanks,” Bumblebee said, chuckling at the low growl that made Blitzwing’s entire chest shake. “I’m kidding, Blitzbrain. It’s only mostly annoying. Kinda jostling my circuits here.”

“You’re the one that fell off a cliff in the first place!” Blitzwing retorted.

“You said it was your fault, not mine!”

“ _So did you!_ ”

Bumblebee opened his mouth and promptly closed it again, trying to stifle the grin that tried to rise on his face. “My bad,” he said with a tiny shrug, wincing. Blitzwing’s face spun back to blue almost immediately, optic narrowing.

“You made a face,” he said pointedly.

“Yeah,” Bumblebee said with a roll of the optics. “Kinda hurting a bit here. I think there’s a wire loose somewhere, something keeps scraping inside of my arm. Or twenty somethings. Thirty?”

“Or a hundred, rather.”

“Fair enough.”

Bumblebee looked down at his servos, assessing the damage for the millionth time, watching one of his digits bend in an entirely incorrect direction when he flexed it too far. He grimaced again, and Blitzwing sighed above him.

“Stop doing that,” Blitzwing said. “You’re going to short circuit something.”

“I can’t help it,” Bumblebee whined, lacing his fingers together and squeezing as hard as he could. “I’m fidgety! You should know that by now! This is why I didn’t want to be carried!” He paused, jerking his dislocated digit back into place with a hiss. “Are we there yet?”

“Not much longer now,” Blitzwing said, clearly exasperated but trying admirably to hide it. Bumblebee had to fight back a smile at the sight. “Perhaps a day or two, maybe less.”

“I can’t believe it,” Bumblebee said, letting his frame go limp, incredibly aware of the miniscule adjustments Blitzwing made to accommodate the change in position. “All this time out in the woods, and we’re actually going to be back. In Detroit! With everyone, back to normal. I get to see Sari again, and Prime, and Bulkhead and Prowl and Ratchet—okay, maybe I’m not super excited about seeing Ratchet—but still! It’s going to be so great, isn’t it? Back in our rooms with our friends! Or our, uh… comrades, in your case?”

Bumblebee cringed at his own rambling, clenching his jaw shut. He couldn’t tell if Blitzwing noticed how hard he was trying to merely pretend that he was purely excited. For frag’s sake, he’d admitted out loud yesterday that he didn’t want to be back in Detroit—or, rather, that he didn’t want to be away from Blitzwing. Even thinking about the idea of being Blitzwing’s enemy once again made him feel strangely ill. Would it even be possible to fight someone he knew so well? Someone that Bumblebee would finally admit, even if only silently, that he cared about?

Though if Blitzwing noticed Bumblebee’s obvious overcompensation, he didn’t comment on it. “I suppose it will be nice to return to a familiar status quo,” Blitzwing said flatly.

_Stupid_ , Bumblebee told himself, gritting his dentae. _Primus, you’re so stupid. You’ve been feeling… things for, what, a month now? More? When did this even start? And the first time your dumb aft admitted it was yesterday? You’re so stupid, Bee! Just say something! Like, hey, Blitzbrain, I’m worried about you going back to the Cons, and I also kinda like you! How hard would that be to say? It’s, like, fifteen words! You can manage fifteen words, can’t you?_

Bumblebee shrank down a little bit, feeling his frazzled circuitry warm up slightly as his processor ran amok. _He even said he feels the same way,_ Bumblebee thought. _Maybe he kinda likes you too? A little bit? Maybe? Ugh, gross, I can’t believe I actually like a Con. Prime’s gonna lecture me until my audials fall off. But it’s not, like, romantic stuff… is it? Oh, ew, do I_ like _like him? For frag’s sake, Bee, you’re so dumb! Of all the mechs you could’ve had a crush on, it had to be—_

“You’re awfully quiet,” Blitzwing noted absently.

Bumblebee’s train of thought came screeching to a halt, and he shrugged far too quickly, scrambling for composure. “Just thinking,” he said cryptically. “‘Bout being back with everyone and all that stuff.”

“I’m glad you’re excited,” Blitzwing said.

Bumblebee’s processor ran rampant once again, trying and failing not to overanalyze the strange tightness he heard in Blitzwing’s tone.

* * *

Blitzwing opted not to think too much about how quiet Bumblebee was being, reminding himself over and over that the Autobot was surely just tired, in pain, stressed about his injuries and rapidly emptying fuel tank. Bumblebee’s near-constant, restless movements must be from his nerves, the nonstop flood of errors that were surely spreading across his HUD.

Nothing more.

Though the last time Bumblebee had been quiet like this, it had gone completely unexplained. And Blitzwing was aching for an explanation, a mere peek into Bumblebee’s thoughts, just to see what was running through that processor of his. The tension last night before Bumblebee had fallen asleep had been so thick that Blitzwing was sure an axe couldn’t have cut through it. But _why?_ He’d been searching Bumblebee’s optics, but for _what?_

Signs were written all over Bumblebee’s face, indicators that he didn’t want to go back to Detroit. He didn’t want to be back with his own faction, his friends, his anything. But _why not?_

Blitzwing despised the unanswered question more than any other he’d ever had. He didn’t want to go back to Detroit either, though for much more obvious reasons. He didn’t even want to know what Megatron’s reaction to his return would be—would he be pleased with the return of his prized triple changer, or would he punish Blitzwing for disappearing? Blitzwing shuddered at the thought, refocusing his attention on the ache in his leg merely to have something else to think about.

“Bumblebee?” Blitzwing said, unable to stand the silence any longer.

Bumblebee looked up, his optics half lidded, though the blue was just as bright as ever. “Uh huh?”

Blitzwing paused, not quite sure of what he wanted to say. It couldn’t be that hard to simply ask Bumblebee how he felt, perhaps attempt to explore with him why he was so hesitant to be back in Detroit. But as soon as the words rose to Blitzwing’s lips, they died against his glossa.

“Are you… feeling alright?” was all Blitzwing could manage while trying to keep his tone cool.

Bumblebee pondered for a few moments, examining his fingertips thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Just kinda tired. A little bored. A lot bored, actually. I’m in the mood to race, and I have no tires. Or working legs. How lame is that?”

“Quite lame,” Blitzwing said, forcing down the grin that threatened his collected expression. “It’s normal to be tired, you know. Your internal systems are incredibly hard at work.”

“And yet, I still feel like total slag,” Bumblebee grumbled, crossing his arms, a few crackling lines of electricity spitting from his damaged chest. “It sorta feels like my insides are all… crusty. I wonder if this is how Ratchet feels _all the time._ Is this what it’s like to be old? All rusty and gross? Ugh. I don’t want to get old, if that’s the case.”

“At least you’ll have working tires when you’re old,” Blitzwing said.

“Yeah, and an engine full of grime, apparently,” Bumblebee said with a chuckle. “Though I guess Megatron is pretty old, and he’s still kicking just fine. And you’re pretty old too, right? If you fought in the war and everything?”

“I’m not _old,_ ” Blitzwing said defensively, gritting his dentae, his vision blurring with red. “I’m just… seasoned.”

“That’s what old mechs say,” Bumblebee said with false wiseness.

“I will _throw you into a tree, insect._ ”

Bumblebee chuckled dryly, his vocalizer hissing with static for a brief moment. “Just messing with you, Blitzbrain,” he said with a sigh.

It was only then that Blitzwing noticed just how weary Bumblebee looked: his lips were cracked, his faceplates sunken and scratched, dried oil caked in a thin line down his chin. He looked absolutely terrible, but his optics were still so full of life, cocky and bright and excitable as ever.

Blitzwing gritted his dentae, picking up the pace a little bit despite the pain that stabbed through the sensors in his leg. As much as he wanted to drag his feet and ask the unanswerable questions, Bumblebee needed help, and Blitzwing wasn’t the one that could give it to him. Even if he was aching to know more about Bumblebee, about the previous night, about anything, his top priority had to be returning Bumblebee to safety. 

Bumblebee blinked a few times, looking around. “You sped up,” he said.

“Only a little bit,” Blitzwing muttered.

“Why?”

“So we can get to Detroit _faster_ and I can get my fragging _leg_ fixed, dumb Autobot!” Blitzwing snapped, wishing that he had the bravery to admit what he really wanted to say, that he was terribly worried about Bumblebee’s health and safety. But the words wouldn’t come, his anger at his own stubbornness only encouraging him to walk more quickly. “You look like a fragging scrapyard, by the way. Get some rest.”

“I’m not tired!” Bumblebee said, his lower lip sticking out into a massive pout. “I’m perfectly awake!”

“Well, you still look like total scrap,” Blitzwing said, hating every word that came out of his mouth. _Just ask him what he’s feeling!_ Blitzwing thought desperately. _You know it’ll drive you absolutely crazy if you don’t ask before taking him home!_ “And I’d rather not get my aft kicked by your moronic leader for bringing you back looking like I put you in a _blender._ ”

“That’s what I said before, but _no,_ we just _had_ to go back to Detroit,” Bumblebee mumbled. “Moron.”

“Stupid.”

“Oil breath.”

“ _Aft faced numbskull._ ”

Bumblebee sulked harder. “Watch your mouth,” he said, wagging a finger toward Blitzwing’s face, his sulk disappearing into a wide smile. “I’ll tell Prime that you bullied me and he’ll kick you from here to next Sunday.”

All of the annoyance evaporated out of Blitzwing on the spot, and he found himself laughing hard, matching Bumblebee’s grin with one of his own. “I’d love to see him try,” he tittered brightly.

* * *

A few more hours of banter later, Bumblebee had hilariously slipped into recharge mid-sentence, his optics fluttering shut as exhaustion overpowered his incessant need to talk. Blitzwing mourned the loss of conversation for a few moments before allowing himself to be relieved that Bumblebee was finally resting, pulling the little Autobot close to his chest, hoping to protect him from the cold.

Not that the temperature bothered Blitzwing all that much—if anything, he savored it now more than ever. The chilly wind that whisked through his frame did a rather good job of keeping the circuitry in his leg cold, numbing the sensors and slowing the stream of errors that kept pinging his processor. 

He knew he should stop and rest for the night, the moon misty and hard to see through a thick coating of clouds, but he pursued nonetheless, limping forward with fervor, thinking about only two things: keeping Bumblebee warm and keeping Bumblebee safe.

The moon felt like a spotlight against Blitzwing’s frame, highlighting every chip in his armor, every poorly executed repair. The shadows cast across Bumblebee’s face were deeper and darker than ever without the blue of his optics to warm his face, his sleeping expression oddly troubled. Blitzwing wondered if he was dreaming, and if so, what he was dreaming about.

He hoped Bumblebee was having lovely thoughts about racing, video games, all of those stupid pastimes he had that made his entire body glow when he mentioned them. It was strangely comforting to imagine, the happiness that would flow through Bumblebee when his tires filled with air, carrying him down the roads of Detroit at completely illegal speeds.

As much as Blitzwing dreaded being back at his base, constantly fighting and assisting Megatron with whatever seemingly impossible enterprise he wanted to undertake, he focused instead on Bumblebee. And though Detroit would spell nothing but misery for himself, it would surely make the little Autobot happy. And that was all that mattered at the moment.

Blitzwing wasn’t sure how he managed to keep his intentions so collected and sharp for such a long time, but he hardly noticed as dawn warmed the horizon, the sun splattering the clouds with brilliant shades of pink and orange. He pushed forward as the shadows of trees got shorter and shorter, keeping Bumblebee tucked close to his chassis, actively focusing on controlling his limp to avoid rousing the sleeping Autobot.

He only slowed when his monocular suddenly caught an unfamiliar sight, something much more structured than the rough edges of nature that had surrounded them for so long. Blitzwing stopped abruptly, zooming in as far as he could, his fingers tightening around Bumblebee’s frame as he peered past the blinding sun toward the pointed mass in the distance.

Buildings. Tall, looming buildings, their windows glimmering as they reached toward the sky, catching the light of morning and scattering it delicately in thousands of directions.

Blitzwing felt like his spark had stopped pulsing. It was still a few hours’ walking distance, but there it was, clear as day. The skyline of Detroit. Blitzwing squeezed Bumblebee’s frame, unaware of how suddenly his digits had started shaking, clenching Bumblebee as if they didn’t want to let go.

He looked down as Bumblebee shifted slightly, a sleepy squeak of disapproval emitting from Bumblebee’s voice box. Blitzwing loosened his grip, unable to take his gaze from Bumblebee’s gaunt faceplates.

_We really made it, Bumblebee,_ Blitzwing thought, biting his glossa so hard that he tasted energon. _You’ll be home soon, safe and sound._

Trying to ignore the dark pit of dread that was filling his tanks, Blitzwing took a heavy step forward, then another. Just one pede after the other. That was all he had to do to get everything back to normal, to get Bumblebee repaired.

He refused to think about anything else.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before this chapter starts, i want to link some absolutely incredible fanart that has been drawn of this fic! thank you so, so much to the artists for creating these phenomenal pieces-- go show them some love!
> 
> lilpaopotato made these two adorable pieces: [here](https://lilpaopotato.tumblr.com/post/183842906148/to-all-of-you-fiction-writers-on-tumblr-dont) and [here](https://lilpaopotato.tumblr.com/post/183450337026/ay-who-gave-blitzwing-a-scarf-for)  
> watermelon-sketchnsketch made these two stunning scenes as well: [here](https://watermelon-sketchnsketch.tumblr.com/post/183700611776/chapter-one-fansketch-of-morethanmeetstheasss) and [here](https://watermelon-sketchnsketch.tumblr.com/post/183879054176/these-bastards-chapter-21-illustration-of)  
> and pastelpaperplanes drew pre-triple changer blitzy! [here](https://pastelpaperplanes.tumblr.com/post/183886424403/morethanmeetstheass-s-design-for-pre-triple)

Bumblebee groaned quietly as he awoke, his frame rebooting slowly and reminding him with a barrage of scarlet warnings that he was, in fact, still damaged beyond belief. He rolled his optics at his own system protocols and cleared the errors away, flexing his digits and blinking blearily a few times to clear the sleepiness from his processor.

He was rather surprised to find that he was still moving, and rather quickly at that. It took a few moments to register the strong masses of metal holding onto his frame, and he yawned loudly, his jaw popping as misaligned pistons snapped back into place.

“You’re awake,” Blitzwing said, his words breathy and labored. “Don’t yawn so much. Your jaw will fall off.”

Bumblebee chuckled groggily, rubbing exhaustion from his optics, his gaze trailing up to Blitzwing’s face as he felt a small grin slide over his own. “Good morning to you, too,” he said snidely. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I guess almost dying makes me tired.”

“What a surprise,” Blitzwing chuckled. 

Bumblebee smiled and looked at his surroundings for a few moments, taking in the sunlight that did little to pierce the chill lingering in the air, watching heavy puffs of warmth blast from Blitzwing’s vents. He yawned again, stretching his aching back before going limp in Blitzwing’s arms, closing his optics in hopes of a few extra moments of rest.

“How’d you sleep?” Bumblebee asked, fiddling with the crack in his chest, plucking at the sharper edges of the splintered metal.

“I didn’t. And stop picking.”

Bumblebee frowned, his optics snapping open so he could properly glare at Blitzwing. “You _what?_ ” he said sharply. “Not at all?”

Blitzwing shook his helm, the plating on one cheek twitching. “No,” he said.

Bumblebee wrapped a servo around one of Blitzwing’s fingers and bent it backwards, scowling. “Why not?” he said, trying his best to sound firm even though his vocalizer sputtered and cut out more than a few times. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Since sunset,” Blitzwing said, his tone oddly curt. Bumblebee frowned as deeply as he could, bending Blitzwing’s finger back harder.

“And it’s, what, the middle of the morning now?” Bumblebee said. “You need to rest! I know I’m all busted up and whatnot, but you can’t carry me if you’re all tired and stuff! You’ll drop me!”

“I’m not tired,” Blitzwing argued, his faceplates twitching more noticeably.

“You will be if you keep pulling all-nighters!” Bumblebee snapped. “Lie down right now. You need to rest your systems. What are your tanks at, like, negative fifty percent or something? I can’t go get fuel for you this time if you run out! Stop being stubborn and just take a nap! Even a little one is fine! Primus, how bad is your leg if you’ve been power walking like this all night? If it breaks off, I’m going to laugh at you, I hope you know that. Big dummy with only one leg. Actually, that’d be kinda funny. Do you think—”

Bumblebee yelped as Blitzwing’s grip suddenly shifting, his servos tightening around Bumblebee’s waist and tilting him upright. “Hey!” he whined. “What are you doing? You’re gonna—ow, ow, _ow,_ not so tight—you’re gonna drop me!”

Blitzwing didn’t respond, simply lifting Bumblebee up so he could peek over the treetops. He blinked rapidly in the sudden brightness, squinting and peering forward.

“It’s too bright, stupid,” Bumblebee muttered. “What exactly am I—”

His words blurred out into mere static as his optics finally adjusted, and he realized with a start why Blitzwing was practically jogging. The rigid skyline of Detroit was so close that it practically loomed over them already, the hard edges of buildings strangely alien and unfamiliar against optics that had gotten so accustomed to seeing nothing but trees and rivers. Bumblebee felt his spark leap into his throat and promptly sink deep into his tanks.

“Oh,” he said quietly.

Blitzwing lowered Bumblebee back into his arms, tucking him against his chest and limping forward, a small grimace on his face. “Surprise,” he said. “Quite the sight to wake up to, isn’t it?”

Bumblebee couldn’t manage much more than a nod. He felt exhausted once again, looking around wildly, wondering if there was another cliff nearby that he could fall down. But his spark only sank lower when he saw the occasional walking trail winding around them, the strange little paths of gravel that humans traveled on when they wanted to experience nature, but not too much.

“Yeah,” Bumblebee agreed weakly. “That’s Detroit, isn’t it? Wow. Can’t… can’t wait.”

He paused for a few endless moments before looking up at Blitzwing, whose jaw was twitching nonstop now, his gaze fixed firmly forward.

“How much longer until we… actually get there?” Bumblebee asked quietly.

“An hour at most,” Blitzwing said, his vents exhaling a hot gust of slightly smoky air. “There’s a river we have to cross, and then you’ll be home.”

_Will I really, though?_ Bumblebee thought, shrinking down into Blitzwing’s grip, fiddling with his thumbs. “Great,” he lied. “Can’t wait.”

“You said that already.”

“Well, I’m… super excited,” Bumblebee said, lying through his dentae, attempting to disappear into Blitzwing’s arms. “Can’t you tell?”

A grin flickered across Blitzwing’s faceplates. “Well, you’re practically bouncing up and down,” he said sarcastically. 

Bumblebee chuckled dryly, trying to ignore the dread gnawing at his spark as his processor reeling with endless possibilities. Could they stay friends after this? Would Prime allow it? Megatron certainly wouldn’t. Would they have to fight each other? How would Blitzwing even get repaired? Did the Decepticons have a secret medic? Was Megatron going to hurt Blitzwing? Would the Autobots ask how Bumblebee had stayed alive so long? Could he tell them the truth? Would it be worth it to tell Blitzwing how he felt, or would that just end in disaster? Did Blitzwing even feel the same way?

“Are you excited?” Bumblebee asked, wishing his processor would slow down for once.

Blitzwing pondered in silence for a few moments before giving a half-hearted shrug. “About as much as you are, I think,” he said without an ounce of excitement on his face.

_You’re damn right about that_ , Bumblebee thought bitterly.

* * *

It was a strange feeling, reaching the edge of the river, watching so many organics scuttle alongside androids and automatons, tireless helpers in everyday functions of their respective humans. No matter how long he was on this planet, Blitzwing would never get used to the sight. Something just felt so unnatural about the idea, robots without thought processes of their own, mindlessly running around and serving the humans who’d paid money to obtain them.

The only benefit to their insensitivity was that none of the humans appeared to particularly care about the way Blitzwing was stalling at the river’s edge, looking down at the water with a scowl. Bumblebee’s weary optics opened a little wider as they tried to meet Blitzwing’s.

“We going or not?” the minibot asked quietly.

“I’m debating whether it will be better to go through the water or cross a bridge,” Blitzwing replied, already knowing which he intended to do, but certainly not wanting to rush. These were his last few moments with Bumblebee. Maybe he should toughen up and just tell the Autobot how he felt—that he was going to miss the annoying little twit far more than he would have ever anticipated.

He took a deep breath and opened his mouth, trying to be brave. What was the worst that could happen? Bumblebee may tell him that he didn’t feel the same way, and Blitzwing could dump him at the other Autobots’ pedes and be done with it. He could get over it, couldn’t he?

“I dunno about going through the water,” Bumblebee said, interrupting Blitzwing’s silent attempt to speak. “Water damage is one of the few things I don’t have right now, and I’m not sure I want to change that.”

Blitzwing chuckled dryly. “True as that may be, I fear crossing the bridge may bring too much attention our way,” Blitzwing said, opting to keep his thoughts to himself for now. It couldn’t be worth the risk—what if Bumblebee told the Autobots about his embarrassing emotions and, somehow, the words got to Megatron? He’d be beyond fragged. He’d be killed for treason without a doubt.

“Aw, come on!” Bumblebee complained. “I don’t wanna get all wet! What if something short circuits? We’re not completely waterproof, you know, and there’s a huge _crack_ in my chest, if you haven’t noticed!”

“Keep your voice down,” Blitzwing said. “Your voice is very recognizable, especially in this city, so I’m going to have to ask you to do the impossible and stay _quiet_ until we get you somewhere safe.”

Bumblebee huffed, folding his arms over his chest and sticking out his lower lip. “This sucks,” he grumbled. “You sure we can’t just go across the bridge?”

“That bridge is covered in cars,” Blitzwing said with a roll of the optics. “And I’m not in a particularly good position to be dodging vehicles that are driving at fifty miles per hour.”

Bumblebee sulked for a little while longer before sighing and nodding. “I guess,” he said. “I mean, I don’t really have a choice, do I? You’re the one with the legs, so you’re the one calling the shots.”

“Clever mech,” Blitzwing said, trying not to grin as he placed a servo over Bumblebee’s chest, hoping to seal it away from the chilly water that lay before them. They had to go through the river. Blitzwing needed to be alone with Bumblebee one last time, completely alone, if he wanted any chance of saying how he felt. “It’s going to be cold. Will you be alright?”

“Duh,” Bumblebee said, his grin getting wider and more cocky. “When have I ever complained about being cold?”

“Don’t even get me started.” Blitzwing drew in a deep breath before stepping forward into the water, grimacing almost immediately as the chill bit into his plating, surging through his sensors. Bumblebee’s jaw set, and his little servos snaked under Blitzwing’s, creating an extra barrier between his chest and the impending water.

“This is totally gonna suck,” he said knowingly, hoisting himself higher against Blitzwing’s chest, trying to put as much distance between himself and the water as possible.

Blitzwing nodded. “You’ll be alright,” he said, hoping that he sounded reassuring. “Keep your servos there. It’ll help keep your internals dry.”

He took the next few steps as quickly as he could, his dentae grinding together, grateful that the bitter cold seemed to numb his sensors as he traveled forward. Bumblebee’s servos tightened underneath his own, and though he felt the Autobot begin to shiver as his small frame dipped into the water, he didn’t seem to have any vocal complaints. 

“How far is it to walk?” Bumblebee asked nervously as their frames slipped fully under the water, chunks of ice bumping against Blitzwing’s helm as he slowly submerged.

“Not long,” Blitzwing said quietly. “It’s a rather small river.”

“And you think having two giant robots popping out of the water is gonna be less conspicuous than two giant robots crossing a bridge?” Bumblebee said, shaking hard, vocalizer sputtering wildly. “Uh—yeah, it’s getting in, by the way.”

“What is?”

“Water. Walk faster, please?”

Blitzwing nodded, trying to stay calm as panic rose in Bumblebee’s voice, increasing the size of his steps. This was the most private moment they’d get, underwater, the last time they’d truly be able to be alone. Blitzwing forced himself to walk quickly, not wanting Bumblebee’s spark to get waterlogged, wondering what damage that could even cause.

It was now or never.

“Bumblebee?” Blitzwing said, holding onto the little Autobot tightly, swallowing hard, praying that his vocalizer would cooperate with his processor for once in his life. 

A thin stream of blue light cut through the rather murky water, and Blitzwing looked down to see Bumblebee staring up at him, looking almost… hopeful? Surely that was Blitzwing’s imagination.

“What’s up?” Bumblebee asked, optics shimmering, his whole face practically emanating light.

Blitzwing’s digits trembled for a moment, and he set his jaw, ready to speak. He had to say it. He had to tell Bumblebee that he cared. The minibot deserved to know how cherished he was, and not just for being a hero of Detroit.

“How much water is there?” he asked dumbly, mentally cursing himself as soon as the words left his mouth. Now they were both going to be wet and freezing for no reason. Why was it so difficult to simply say _words?_

Bumblebee looked back down at his chest, and Blitzwing tried not to notice the flash of dismay across his features. _That’s just your imagination, Blitzwing. Don’t get carried away._

“Uh… not too much,” Bumblebee said. “Just a little. A leak, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good.”

Bumblebee chuckled a little as the surface of the water got closer and closer to Blitzwing’s helm, stray lumps of ice starting to graze his wrecked cannons. “You know, this is gonna be the last time we’re by ourselves,” Bumblebee said, his digits shifting around under Blitzwing’s palm. “Like, actually by ourselves. As soon as we get above the water, that’s it. I’m a celebrity, and you’re one of the big bad guys that blows up everyone’s bridges. Have you thought about that?”

Blitzwing gritted his dentae as his helm breached the water, and he nodded, hating himself more and more with every step. “Yes,” he said. “I have.”

* * *

Bumblebee tried not to feel disappointed as Blitzwing clambered out of the river, vents popping open and sending icy streams of water dripping down both of their frames.

_He wasn’t going to say anything like that_ , Bumblebee told himself, letting his own armor gape and clear itself of the freezing cold water. _Stop being so dumb! He was just asking a question. Stop assuming stupid stuff._

The only thing that distracted him from his emotional plight was the amount of humans below them who had suddenly paused their strolling, staring up at Blitzwing with awestruck expressions on their tiny faces. Bumblebee wanted to giggle at the disgusted look Blitzwing was giving them, but he couldn’t bring himself to. His spark felt too heavy, his processor reeling with far too many questions than he could even count.

“Hey,” one of the humans said, pointing as Blitzwing limped forward, his faceplates tight with stress. “Isn’t that… Bumblebee?”

Another human gasped. “Bee’s alive?”

“No way!”

“But the news—”

“Someone call the police!”

Blitzwing growled as cameras started flashing, his heavy pace increasing vastly as he pulled Bumblebee closer to his chest, apparently trying to tuck him out of view. “Well, aren’t you popular,” he grumbled as a few humans screamed, barely dodging one of Blitzwing’s massive pedes as he stepped heavily onto the concrete ground.

“Can’t help it,” Bumblebee said with a shrug, trying to keep his voice low. “Just keep walking.”

“Where’s your base?”

Bumblebee felt his vocalizer hitch, and he shrugged weakly. “I can’t tell you,” he said, scrambling for any excuse to keep Blitzwing walking, not ready for this ordeal to be over. He didn’t want to be in Detroit, surrounded by humans, no matter how much they loved and admired him. He just wanted to be with Blitzwing, even if only for a few minutes.

Though Blitzwing clearly didn’t agree, snarling, his face spinning to red with a _whirr._ “What do you _mean,_ you _can’t tell me?_ ” he spat. “What did you _think_ was going to happen when we got to the city?”

“You can just drop me off here,” Bumblebee said, knowing that Blitzwing wouldn’t. “I can walk from here.”

“ _You can’t walk at all!_ ”

“Well, you’re not allowed to see my base! Prime will kill me!”

“I’m not going to _tell_ anyone where it is, your iron-brained idiot!”

“Yeah?! How can I be sure?”

Blitzwing made a loud noise of exasperation and swung his pede toward a particularly curious human girl, who shrieked and ran in the other direction. “Tell these annoying pests to get away from me,” he growled.

“They’re not that bad!” Bumblebee retorted, nearly falling out of Blitzwing’s grip as the triple changer took a sharp left to avoid a police car with all lights aglow across its chassis.

“Pathetic organics,” Blitzwing yelled, yanking Bumblebee in hard, practically spitting fire as he raged at everyone who came near them. “Get _away_ from me!”

Another police car screamed in their direction, and Blitzwing punted it hard, sending it flying across the street. Bumblebee gasped, closing his optics tightly.

“Dude!” he snapped. “Don’t hurt them!”

“ _They’re annoying me!_ ”

Blitzwing took off at a run, and Bumblebee had to cling to his neck to keep from being dropped, optics big and terrified. “Slow down!” he yelled. “You’re gonna drop me!”

“ _No, I’m not!_ ” Blitzwing hollered, easily outpacing the humans chasing after them despite his deepening limp, his enormous stride leaving almost everyone behind. “Where’s your fragging base, moron?”

“I can’t tell you!” Bumblebee lied loudly over the deafening sound of Blitzwing’s footfalls against asphalt.

“ _Liar!_ ”

“Am not!”

Blitzwing hissed, practically frothing at the mouth as he ran into a tucked away alley, squeezing himself between two buildings and ducking out of view of the windows surrounding them. He looked down at Bumblebee with a gap-toothed sneer, his vents puffing violently.

“Just what exactly are you trying to achieve here, bug?” Blitzwing spat. “Are you trying to get me _killed?_ Because you’re _going to_ if you don’t give me a chance to run away from these… _organics._ ”

“They’re not that bad!” Bumblebee said defensively, grimacing as he tried to come up with a good lie. “And I—I don’t know! I just can’t let you know where our base is! Megatron will nuke the place!”

“ _I’m not going to tell Megatron!_ ” Blitzwing yelled, sirens wailing quietly in the distance. “I _told_ you that! Just tell me where it is so you can get _repaired,_ moron!”

Bumblebee spluttered for a few moments, completely out of excuses, feeling the air in his vents quicken, growing hotter by the second. “I—I just—” he tried, stammering wildly. “I don’t—you—”

“Spit it out, bug!”

“I don’t care!” Bumblebee yelled, finally losing control of himself, grabbing onto Blitzwing’s chest and digging his fingers into it, his frame clattering as anger and confusion and sorrow overwhelmed him completely. “I don’t care about my base, okay? I don’t wanna be in Detroit! I don’t wanna be anywhere near here! I wanna be back in the woods, wandering around like idiots, scrounging for fuel and doing stupid stuff with you! I wanna chase more squirrels and fight off bears and tell you stories! And I wanna hear your stories and look at the clouds with you and hear about what it’s like to fly!”

Bumblebee barely noticed the _whirr_ as Blitzwing’s face spun back to blue—he closed his optics immediately afterwards, not wanting to see whatever smirk Blitzwing had.

“I don’t wanna be away from you!” Bumblebee continued, begging himself to shut up, but now that his vocalizer was running, he was helpless to stop it. “I really hated you when we first washed up on that beach, okay? You know that! But—I don’t know—it started to be kinda fun! And I kinda started to sorta—maybe—I don’t know—I think I kind of _like_ spending time with you. I mean… not kind of. I _do._ I _do_ like being around you, and I don’t wanna be away from you. And I sure as slag don’t wanna _fight_ you!”

Bumblebee’s voice was only getting louder and more piercing, and he gasped a few times, trying to stop himself to no avail. “H-How can I fight you now, knowing everything I know?” he said, palms pressed against Blitzwing’s chest, raking his fingers up and down the scarred plating. “I don’t wanna hurt you! I just wanna—I—I don’t—I don’t even know! I don’t want you to have nightmares anymore, and I don’t want Megatron to hurt you, and I’m confused and I hate this—I hate _everything about this!_ You’re a total idiot and I _hate that I care about you!_ ”

Bumblebee’s entire frame was shaking so hard that his plating was rattling, and he kept his optics pinned tightly shut. He felt like purging, wishing he could take back everything he’d just said, going rigid in Blitzwing’s arms, praying that when Blitzwing inevitably threw him at a wall, the impact would kill him on the spot. He sniffled a few times, vents dragging in gulps of cold air.

“Bumblebee,” Blitzwing said, and Bumblebee shook his helm wildly, interrupting whatever mockery the triple changer had in store for him.

“Just ignore me,” Bumblebee said, rubbing his optics with violently trembling fingers. “I’m kidding. It was just a joke. Just… go away. If I get out of your signal range, the Autobots will find me. I’ll be fine. We’re kinda near my base—just—I—”

“Bumblebee,” Blitzwing said, more firmly this time. “Look at me.”

“Absolutely not!” Bumblebee said shrilly, putting his hands over his optics. “It was a joke, so you can’t make fun of me! Ha, ha! Get it! Funny joke! Put me down and go _away_ —please—!”

“ _Bumblebee._ Look at me.”

Bumblebee felt a servo press against his fingertips, and he didn’t fight as Blitzwing slowly pulled them away from his face. He paused before opening his optics, meeting Blitzwing’s gaze, his spark jolting at the expression he saw. It was one he’d seen before, but not one he could recognize: softer than usual, the crimson of his singular optic warm and gentle, a slight tension in his jaw.

“What?” Bumblebee mumbled, his frame ablaze with embarrassed heat.

“You’re far braver than I give you credit for, Bumblebee,” Blitzwing said quietly.

“Thanks,” Bumblebee said irritably. “Can I go now?”

“You misunderstand me,” Blitzwing said. Bumblebee’s spark did a backflip as he noticed Blitzwing leaning just a tiny bit closer in his direction. He balled his servos into fists, ready to punch despite the fact that his gaze wouldn’t budge from Blitzwing’s, optics wide.

“What are you doing?” Bumblebee said, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.

“Trying something,” Blitzwing said simply.

He moved a little closer. Bumblebee choked a little bit, shaking even harder.

“Okay,” he breathed, feeling his frame straighten a bit, processor spinning as their faces drifted closer and closer. When had he started moving, too? He didn’t remember doing that. But he certainly didn’t want to stop, the sound of sirens fading from Bumblebee’s audials. All sound stopped except for the gentle humming of Blitzwing’s vents, the quiet creaks as Blitzwing put a single finger under Bumblebee’s chin, tilting it up ever so slightly.

Bumblebee’s spark had never pounded so hard. He could feel the heat of Blitzwing’s face nearing his own, the gentle rush of air from between his lips, and Bumblebee closed his optics, his awareness fading away entirely. His processor ceased to function as one of his servos slid upwards, placing the tips of his quivering fingers against Blitzwing’s sharp cheek, coaxing him forward ever so slightly, wondering what it would be like to just close the gap between them. His spark was spinning wildly in his chest, but he hardly noticed it, practically tasting Blitzwing’s breath as—

“ _Bumblebee!_ ”

A loud _thunk_ suddenly split the air, serenity shattering like glass as Blitzwing screamed in agony, dropping Bumblebee onto the hard concrete. Bumblebee cried out, his awareness rushing back as something in his arm crunched, his optics snapping open as fresh pain rained across his sensornet.

Blitzwing was pushing himself upright, a bitter scowl on his now-crimson face, wrenching an axe out of his shoulder and hurling it at the ground as energon and oil spurted from a fresh, deep gash in his shoulder. Bumblebee struggled to push himself up enough to see Blitzwing’s attacker, not that he was even remotely surprised to see who it was. No one else had an axe like that.

“Wait—Prime—” Bumblebee stammered, clutching his arm and grimacing as his elbow folded in the wrong direction. “Stop!”

Optimus was merely a flash of blue and red as he recollected his axe, holding it above his shoulder with the blade aimed threateningly at Blitzwing. “Get away from him, Decepticon,” Optimus said, his voice low and dark. 

“ _Wait!_ ” Bumblebee yelled again, trying to crawl forward in a feeble attempt to put himself between Blitzwing and Optimus. “Boss bot, _stop!_ ”

Optimus held a servo toward Bumblebee, gesturing for him to stop, his battle mask snapping over his face. “Don’t go near him, Bumblebee,” he said firmly. “He’s dangerous.”

“ _Listen to me!_ ” Bumblebee insisted frantically, dragging himself a few feet forward. “He’s—”

Blitzwing’s face spun with a _whirr,_ and he met Bumblebee’s gaze for half a second, his blue expression filled to the brim with emotions Bumblebee couldn’t even hope to comprehend. Bumblebee stared back, pleading silently, hoping that somehow, Optimus would stop attacking and Bumblebee could explain what had happened, giving himself and Blitzwing just a few more moments to themselves. Bumblebee could still practically feel Blitzwing’s breath against his lips—all he needed was a couple of seconds to close the gap, to say thank you, to say how sorry he was that things had to end like this.

But before Bumblebee could even try to speak, Blitzwing had spun on his heel, slamming his shoulder against Optimus as he fled, leaving a trail of energon in his wake. Bumblebee’s jaw dropped wordlessly, his spark aching as though it had split in two. Optimus watched as Blitzwing ran for his life, still holding his menacing pose as Bumblebee’s vocalizer choked on nothing.

_No—!_ Bumblebee thought. _Blitzwing, no! Please, come back! Turn around, dammit, you idiot!_

It was an agonizingly long, silent minute before Optimus seemed satisfied with Blitzwing’s retreat, and he immediately sheathed his axe and hurried toward Bumblebee, battle mask sliding back to reveal the concern written deep into his face. “Bumblebee,” he said, dropping to his knees and waving a servo in front of Bumblebee’s face as if worried he was in a coma. “Bumblebee?”

Bumblebee stared at the spot where Blitzwing had disappeared into the distance, shaking all over. _It’s over_ , he thought, slumping to the ground, squeezing his optics shut. _He’s my enemy now. It’s done._

“Bumblebee!” Optimus said again, louder and more alarmed, prodding the back of Bumblebee’s helm. “Are you okay? What—Primus, Bumblebee, what happened to you? What did he _do_ to you?”

Bumblebee couldn’t bring himself to speak, only managing a choked sob, tightening his servos into fists. Optimus seemed to take this as an invitation to pick Bumblebee up, his grip nowhere near as comforting and warm as Blitzwing’s. Bumblebee sank listlessly in Optimus’s arms, too busy trying not to cry that he didn’t even protest being carried.

“I’ve got you, Bee,” Optimus said, taking off toward the base faster than Bumblebee would have thought possible. “Sari’s got her key, okay? She’ll fix you right up. And Ratchet, too. You’re going to be fine.”

Bumblebee doubted that. But for once, he wasn’t in the mood to argue.


	23. Chapter 23

Bumblebee wasn’t sure if it was grief or the disastrous state of his frame that made the trip back to the plant so fuzzy, but when the door lifted and Optimus carried him inside, the sudden yell that crashed into his audials was certainly jarring.

“ _Bumblebee?_ ” Bulkhead’s voice was louder than Bumblebee remembered, and his optics snapped wide open as he heard the sound of Bulkhead’s thick pedes stomping across the concrete floor. Optimus held out a hand in warning, his expression stern.

“Not now, Bulkhead,” he said firmly.

Bulkhead crept forward as if Bumblebee was an exhibit in a zoo, peering at him with amazement written all over his face. Bumblebee stared back, not sure how to feel. Looking at blue optics was so strange, Bumblebee found himself realizing. Red was so much brighter, somehow.

“How you doin’, little buddy?” Bulkhead said, his voice hushed. 

Bumblebee snorted, raising his leaking arm as a feeble smile rose on his face. “Mediocre at best,” he said. “You don’t have to keep your voice down, you know. I’m not dying.”

“I would suggest otherwise,” Optimus said tightly. “Bulkhead, where’s Sari? We need her key as soon as possible.”

“Uh, not sure,” Bulkhead said, hands digging through his subspace clumsily. “I’ll call her! She might be with Tutor Bot.”

Bumblebee looked around, blinking rapidly, trying to reset his optics to adjust to the dim lighting. Seeing a roof over his head, the familiar couch and television situated across from the conveyor belt that split the plant in half—it felt strange. Unfamiliar, despite the fact that this plant had been his home for years now. He wriggled around a little bit, wishing he could be alone for a few moments to collect his thoughts, but Optimus’s grip only tightened at his movements.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Optimus ordered. “Medbay. Come on.”

“Aw, come on,” Bumblebee whined. “Sari just needs to show up and I’ll be good! Can’t I lie down for a little bit?”

“Yes,” Optimus said. “In the _medbay._ ”

Bumblebee sighed and closed his optics as Optimus started carrying him deeper into the plant, his processor spinning with too many thoughts to comprehend. He couldn’t help but worry about Blitzwing—was he going to be okay? Would he be able to get his leg fixed? Was Megatron going to find out what had gone on between them? 

_Don’t think about that,_ Bumblebee told himself, squeezing his optics tighter as they started to sting. _You’re enemies now. You can’t worry about your enemies._

For once, Bumblebee was grateful to hear the near-silent click of pedes against the ground, and he didn’t even need to see to know that Prowl had approached. He grinned a little, optics still shut, waving in the direction of the footsteps.

“Hey,” he said.

“We thought you went offline,” Prowl said bluntly, his voice smooth as ever, though slightly tight around the edges.

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Bumblebee muttered.

“I’m not.”

“Well, he’s damn close to being offline, that’s for sure!” A much gruffer, irritated voice entered Bumblebee’s audials, and he chuckled in spite of himself.

“Good to see you too, Ratchet,” he said.

“Did you jump into a giant blender or something?” Ratchet said, sounding far more frustrated than relieved. “For Primus’ sake, kid, I can see your damn _spark._ ”

Bumblebee thought wildly for a few moments, entering a fierce mental debate with himself. Should he tell them what had happened during all those months? All the time he spent with Blitzwing, the damage they’d suffered together, the effort they’d made to help each other?

“I… fell,” Bumblebee said lamely, quickly deciding that now was not the time.

“Yeah, off a cliff, it looks like,” Ratchet snapped. “Set him down, Prime. I want to look at him before Sari gets here.”

“Why?” Bumblebee asked tiredly, feeling the cool metal of a medical table beneath his back, finally opening his optics to see four faces staring down at him with various expressions. “I just need Sari’s key and that’s it, right? Why do _you_ have to give me an exam?”

“Because you look like you just got out of a one-on-one with a Decepticon!” Ratchet said shortly. “And I am a medic, after all. I can at least _start_ touching you up without needing no damn _key_. I’ve fixed more battle damage than you can even think about.”

Bumblebee’s vocalizer sputtered briefly as he saw Optimus’s elbow nudge into Ratchet’s side, and the two shared a glance before looking back down at him. Bumblebee scowled, folding his arms angrily despite the black sludge dribbling down his arm.

“What?” he said, much more forcefully than intended.

“Nothing,” Optimus said quickly. “Just… listen, Bumblebee, do you want to tell us what happened? It’s been _months._ We looked for you for ages, really, we did, but—”

“But then _Prowl_ said our resources were better off being used fighting off Lugnut and Megatron all the time,” Bulkhead said, shooting Prowl a frown.

Prowl shrugged. “I was simply trying to think tactically,” he said. “I figured you’d find your way back if you were still online.”

“And I _told_ you he was!” Bulkhead said, sounding quite proud of himself. “So we _should_ have looked for him more, see? He’s _fine!_ ”

“I don’t know if ‘fine’ is a good word for it,” Ratchet said, using some kind of heavy clamp to close the split in Bumblebee’s chest. “But it is good to have you back, kid.”

“Sari’s going to be ecstatic,” Optimus said knowingly.

Bumblebee’s head was starting to ache. There were too many bots talking all at once, too much sound, too many weird sensations as Ratchet poked around his frame—all of it was making him dizzy. He’d grown so used to quiet, to the sounds of wind and bugs and snowfall and nothing else. He shut his optics once again, trying not to grimace.

“It’s going to be great when you’re all back to normal, Bee,” Bulkhead said excitedly. “Megatron’s gotta be up to something, and now we have our scout back, so we can figure out what it is! And get this—we might not even have to deal with Blitzwing anymore! He disappeared when you did, too, and we think he— _ow!_ ”

Bumblebee’s optics flashed open as Optimus very obviously stomped on Bulkhead’s foot, shaking his helm pointedly. Bumblebee glared at him again.

“ _What?_ ” he said again, even more angrily.

Optimus shrugged, plastering a falsely innocent expression on his face. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s just… well, you know. I’ll tell them. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’ll tell them _what?_ ” Bumblebee demanded.

Optimus simply patted Bumblebee’s shoulder, smiling warmly. “It’s fine, Bee. You just focus on getting better, okay?” He offered a slightly wider grin that contrasted harshly with Bumblebee’s deepening frown. “We’ll send Sari back as soon as she gets here. She’ll be so happy to see you. She hasn’t stopped worrying about you since you left.”

Bumblebee felt his spark throbbing, wondering what sort of wild assumptions Optimus was making about finding him and Blitzwing hiding in an alley together. Had Optimus seen their almost-kiss? Or was he thinking that Blitzwing was the cause of this damage? He was about to ask when he suddenly yelped instead, feeling something sharp prod against his pede.

“ _Ow!_ ” he yelled pointedly. “Do you _mind,_ doc bot?”

“Oh, good, so you do have sensation down there,” Ratchet said, businesslike as ever. 

“ _No slag!_ ”

“We’ll let you get fixed up,” Optimus said, making an attempt to herd Prowl and Bulkhead out of the medbay despite Bulkhead’s protests. “Feel better, okay? Call us if you need anything, Ratchet.”

Ratchet grunted in acknowledgement, and the two were left in silence for quite some time as Bumblebee let his processor zone out, hoping to think about nothing for a while. He examined the tools around him as Ratchet poked and prodded as his frame, muttering to himself.

Bumblebee couldn’t be bothered after a few minutes to think about the pain in his frame, simply thinking about Blitzwing. He rifled through his memory files, thinking about all of what they’d gone through, avoiding the idea of what they were going to do now. He could he possibly go back to normal after this? He’d been millimeters away from kissing a _Decepticon._ Who could possibly act as though nothing was wrong after something like that? He certainly couldn’t tell any of the Autobots about it—they’d have him tried for treason or something. And if the Elite Guard found out that Bumblebee had been fraternizing with a Decepticon for months on end—

“You’re awfully quiet,” Ratchet said, sending Bumblebee’s train of thought reeling off the tracks.

“Sorry,” Bumblebee mumbled.

“I just sort of thought you’d be rambling on and on about your adventures, that’s all,” Ratchet said, his tone oddly strained.

“I’m… just tired, I guess,” Bumblebee said with a small shrug.

Ratchet huffed in reply, and Bumblebee could practically feel the questions the medic wanted to ask dancing around in the air. But thankfully, Ratchet was smart enough to keep quiet, leaving Bumblebee’s thoughts to run rampant once again.

* * *

Blitzwing’s leg was spilling energon and oil onto the floor more than ever, aching and cracking as rusted flakes of metal fluttered to the ground, but he dared not move out of Megatron’s piercing gaze. Megatron had been staring at him for quite some time, the barest hint of a smug grin pulling his lips tight.

The journey away from downtown Detroit had been agonizing for multiple reasons, but Blitzwing forced himself not to think about it. He was more emotionally torn than ever, unsure if he was glad that he hadn’t gotten the chance to kiss Bumblebee, or if he was disappointed. His spark was certainly upset about the fact, lingering somewhere low in his spark chamber and pulsing languidly, but his processor was trying to convince him that it was better this way. No sense making attachments that would only hurt him in the long run.

Plus, based on the stare Megatron was giving Blitzwing, the warlord knew something was amuk. And Blitzwing wasn’t sure how well he could lie to his face.

“Where have you been?”

A cold shiver ran down Blitzwing’s spinal strut, but he forced himself not to tremble, holding Megatron’s gaze firmly. “Lugnut’s attack created a riptide that sent me across the lake,” he said, his tone as stoic as he could manage. “I awoke on a beach and have been working to return ever since.”

“Your life signal was untraceable.”

“My signal dampener, as well as my t-cog, communications, and leg, were severely damaged.”

“The trip should not have taken more than a few weeks to traverse.”

“I was forced to wait until my leg self repaired, with an estimated waiting time of two months.”

“So you sat on a beach doing nothing in that time?”

“...Yes.”

Megatron paused and Blitzwing cringed, hating himself for the momentary falter that caught in his vocalizer before his first lie. Megatron’s optics raked up and down Blitzwing carefully for quite some time, the silence absolutely deafening, and Blitzwing was relieved when Megatron spoke again.

“Were you accompanied by anyone?” Megatron asked, his voice as silky as it was dangerous.

Blitzwing’s spark leapt into his throat, and he forced himself to stay calm, shaking his helm. “Not that I am aware of, no,” he said.

“The smallest Autobot also disappeared at the same time as you,” Megatron pressed.

Blitzwing felt like he might faint. “Is that so?” 

Megatron nodded, his smirk disappearing, replaced with an expression colder than ice. “You were under attack by said Autobot when Lugnut executed his punch, were you not?” he said.

Blitzwing swallowed hard. “That is correct.”

“So it would be logical to assume that the Autobot was near you when you washed ashore, had you been caught in the same riptide,” Megatron said, his gaze digging holes into Blitzwing’s, unblinking and deadly. “Why was he not located and assassinated?”

Blitzwing feared he may purge, but he held Megatron’s gaze as bravely as he could. “I was more concerned with my own safety rather than the state of a mere Autobot,” he said. “Had I come across him on my travels, I assure you, I would bring you his sparkless husk without hesitation.”

“His signal was located by myself and Lugnut for a few moments,” Megatron said, optics flashing violently. “But then promptly disappeared once we arrived on the scene.”

Blitzwing had to make a conscious effort to keep his fingers from trembling, and he urged himself to giggle, hoping a little humor would get Megatron to stop berating him. “Oh, maybe the Autobot was following me!” he cackled. “I could have killed him this whole time? Bummer!”

“Focus, Blitzwing,” Megatron snapped, and Blitzwing nodded rapidly, letting his fear trickle ice through his systems once again. “How would the Autobot manage to keep his signal hidden without your knowledge?”

Blitzwing hesitated for a millisecond too long, and Megatron stood up taller, optics narrowed to slits.

“Answer me,” Megatron spat. 

“I don’t know,” Blitzwing managed, trying not to cower. “Perhaps he was tailing me within the range of my damaged signal dampener. As I said, I was more focused on returning to safety rather than—”

“The Autobot was within your grasp for months and you let him slip away unharmed,” Megatron growled. “Do not let it happen again. Am I making myself clear?”

Blitzwing nodded as quickly as he could, feeling a blur of emotions whisk across his processor. “Yes, my liege,” he said, wishing he didn’t sound so meek.

Megatron lowered himself to his normal stance, watching Blitzwing coldly. “Lugnut and Professor Sumdac will assist in your repairs,” he said after a long, barren pause. “Go. Report to me as soon as you are capable of walking without a limp. We have much work to do, and I could very much use your... talents.”

Blitzwing turned on his heel and rushed to find Lugnut, his spark pounding in his throat. He didn’t even question how Lugnut, of all mechs, would be capable of taking care of his delicate circuitry, hoping that the human Megatron had stolen was at least decently talented at performing repairs. He just wanted to be away from that frigid crimson stare.

He hoped for a fleeting moment that Bumblebee was receiving a warmer welcome than he was, but he forced the thought away as a flash of annoyance raked through his processor. He couldn’t allow himself to care about Bumblebee anymore, no matter how overwhelming the temptation.

Megatron would have both of their helms mounted to the wall if he ever found out what had really happened. And Blitzwing couldn’t risk letting that happen to Bumblebee.

* * *

“ _Bumblebee!_ Bumblebee, Bumblebee, Bumblebee, _Bumblebee!_ ”

“Sari, be careful with him! He’s injured!”

“ _Bumblebee!_ ”

Bumblebee only had a few seconds to brace himself before the weight of Sari leaping onto his stomach knocked the air straight from his vents, and he wheezed for a moment as pain shot through his sensors. He craned his neck to see Sari’s tiny arms wrapped around his waist in the biggest hug she could give, tears flowing fast and heavy down her cheeks.

He smiled in spite of himself—it was impossible not to around his best friend in the world. “Oh, hey,” he said weakly, moving a servo over Sari’s back in a lame attempt at a hug. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Where have you _been?_ ” Sari cried, holding onto Bumblebee so tightly that it almost hurt. “I _told_ Prowl you were okay, but he said we shouldn’t keep looking, and—and you—I _missed_ you, you big meanie butt! Why didn’t you _call_ me?”

“Hey, whoa, calm down,” Bumblebee said, patting Sari’s head a few times. “Comms were busted. Trust me, I tried! I missed you too! A lot! But I’m okay, see? Mostly. Don’t cry, really, I’m alright!”

Sari ignored Bumblebee’s advice, sniffling loudly against his stomach. Ratchet rolled his optics.

“You’re going to get water in his circuits,” he said shortly.

Sari let out a watery chuckle and finally sat upright, wiping her soaked face a few times to clear tears from it, smiling broadly at Bumblebee. “Sorry,” she said, her eyes still leaking. “Boy, do you look terrible.”

“Thanks,” Bumblebee said dryly. “Wanna do me a favor and use your key real quick? I could really use it.”

Sari looked down at the key dangling from her necklace, looking almost surprised at the sight of it. “Oh, right,” she said with a giggle. “Sure thing. Sit still.”

“Be careful,” Ratchet warned, stepping back a little bit. “He’s going to need more repairs even after you use that thing. The kid’s in terrible shape.”

“Aw, he’s not _that_ bad,” Sari said with a little smirk, crawling up to Bumblebee’s forehead and placing the tip of her key against the dented yellow plating. It slid back without protest, and Bumblebee winced as she slipped the key into his circuitry and cranked it hard.

The errors splattering Bumblebee’s HUD vanished almost instantaneously, and he couldn’t help but let loose a dramatic sigh of relief as the cracks in his plating glowed vibrant blue and welded themselves back together. His spark sealed itself, scuffed paint returning to its former yellow shine, his arm jolting back to a comfortable angle, scars and dents vanishing. In mere seconds, all of the pain Bumblebee felt disappeared, and he took a moment to savor the sensation, taking in long, painless breaths.

“Better?” Sari asked, her grin brighter than a sun.

“You have no idea,” Bumblebee said, closing his optics and lifting his arms skyward, wiggling his digits around happily. He’d barely even realized how much pain he was in until it was all gone, but now, he was simply wondering how he’d tolerated it for so long.

His spark twitched. Poor Blitzwing. He didn’t have the benefit of a key, and he was surely still—

 _Stop,_ Bumblebee told himself, clenching his jaw. _Just… stop. Ugh. Let it go already._

He started to push himself upright, but Ratchet firmly placed a servo on his chest, holding him down. Bumblebee made an irritated sound, squirming a bit.

“What?” he asked angrily.

“You’re still not in any shape to be moving around,” Ratchet said sternly.

“Oh, come on, yes, I am!” Bumblebee argued. “Allspark power, remember? I’m fine, really! No warnings or anything! Can’t I just go to my room?”

“No,” Ratchet snapped. “I know that key is a miracle cure and everything, but the last thing you need to be doing is runnin’ around like a complete moron. You need to _rest._ You’ve been through a lot.”

“Not really!” Bumblebee protested. “Just some walking, that’s all!”

“For _three months!_ ” Ratchet said. “You aren’t leaving this medbay until tomorrow at least, and you’re sure as slag not leaving the base for a while.”

“ _What?_ ” Bumblebee yelled. “Why not? Didn’t Bulkhead say the Decepticons are attacking all the time? Come on, you need me out on the field!”

“I _need_ you to stop arguing with me before I magnetize your sorry aft to this berth,” Ratchet said, his tone indicating that Bumblebee had no hope of changing his mind. “Don’t you want to sit and talk to Sari? I bet you have some… interesting stories to tell.”

Bumblebee wasn’t sure why that statement made his frame heat up, but he looked down at his pedes and shrugged. “I guess,” he muttered.

“Yeah!” Sari agreed, jumping onto Bumblebee’s chest and drumming her hands against his plating. “Tell me everything! Where did you go? Why did you take so long? Did you run into anyone we know? How did you get fuel? Did you _rob_ anyone? Please, please, _please_ tell me!”

Bumblebee opened his mouth for a moment before closing it once again, his frame growing even warmer. “Just walking, mostly,” he said sheepishly. “It wasn’t really that exciting. I did steal, like, a lot of oil from someone’s RV. And a gas station.”

“Cool!” Sari cheered.

Ratchet was less convinced, narrowing his optics. “You’re gonna have to tell us everything that happened eventually, kid,” he said.

Bumblebee frowned at him. “Yeah?” he fired back. “And what do you mean by ‘everything?’ I was just walking for a while, that’s all! And it took a while because B—I broke my leg, I think. At some point.”

“Really, now?”

Bumblebee folded his arms over his chest, sticking his lower lip out. “Really,” he said. “Can I talk to Sari now? Alone? Please?”

Ratchet held up his servos in a dismissive sort of way, shrugging and backing out of the medbay. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Ping me if you need anything.”

Bumblebee didn’t answer, simply waiting for Ratchet to shut the door behind him, his tanks churning uncomfortably. He couldn’t lie to Sari, could he? Her eyes were wide and excited, full of anticipation, and he forced a little grin to match.

Telling only _some_ of the truth wasn’t lying. Right?

“Well, after Lugnut did his punch thing underwater, I got stuck in this riptide, right?” Bumblebee started, forcing his lips not to form Blitzwing’s name. “And I woke up on this beach, which was apparently in _Canada._ Can you believe that?”

* * *

For once, Blitzwing would have preferred the presence of a human to that of Lugnut. But unfortunately, he was stuck with both, attempting to dodge Lugnut’s judgmental stares as Megatron’s pet human poked and prodded at his leg.

“You abandoned us, Blitzwing,” Lugnut said, his grip on Blitzwing’s elevated pede tightening significantly.

Blitzwing hissed, frustration making his vision turn scarlet. “I didn’t _abandon_ you,” he spat. “Your _punch_ is the reason I have a _human_ sticking its filthy, fleshy servos under my plating. How many times have I told you to _warn me before doing the punch?_ Hundreds? _Thousands?_ ”

“Our great leader has many wonderful plans,” Lugnut growled pointedly, completely ignoring Blitzwing’s statement. “Which would be further along if you hadn’t attacked the minibot like a _fool._ ”

“ _It was your fault!_ ” Blitzwing snapped. “ _Warn me before doing the punch!_ Do you need me to beat that idea into your thick processor?”

“Stop moving, please,” the human, Professor Sumdac, said weakly. “I’m almost done.”

“No, you’re not,” Blitzwing hissed. “My t-cog is still fried.”

“Well—I’m almost done with your _leg,_ ” Sumdac said, hurriedly correcting himself. “Keep him still, please, Lugnut.”

Lugnut and Blitzwing grumbled angrily simultaneously, and Blitzwing forced himself to calm down, impatiently waiting for his repairs to be taken care of. Sumdac was talented, but he was no medic, and his progress was slow at best. And Blitzwing was more than ready to go to his quarters to avoid Lungut’s near-constant gushing about Megatron’s amazing plans and how Blitzwing had rudely put them on hold.

“Could you not have made faster progress?” Lugnut asked for the millionth time, sending Blitzwing’s optics rolling. “Lord Megatron has been awaiting your return for quite some time now.”

“I’m sure he has,” Blitzwing mumbled. “And no, I couldn’t. If it wasn’t apparent, I haven’t quite been in the shape to walk.”

“Then you could have flown!” Lugnut said. “You—”

“Wrong again. My t-cog is fried. Thanks to _your_ punch. Have I mentioned how this is _your_ fault?”

Lugnut snarled furiously and started to twist Blitzwing’s leg violently, only stopped when Sumdac made a panicked noise of protest.

“Both of you, please!” he begged. “Sit still!”

“Yes, Lugnut, sit still,” Blitzwing said venomously. “The sooner I’m repaired, the sooner I can heed to our _great_ and _glorious_ leader’s precious plans.”

That seemed to finally shut Lugnut up, and Blitzwing sighed in relief, watching another error slowly disappear from his HUD. The next few minutes passed in total silence, and as Lugnut apparently lost himself in the idea of carrying out whatever Megatron was scheming, Blitzwing gave himself a few moments to think.

Megatron had been very obviously suspicious of him. He’d have to tread very lightly for the next few weeks, that was for sure. Perhaps it would be a good idea to fully plan out his web of lies to ensure that he didn’t get caught in a contradiction. As long as he retold the full story without mentioning Bumblebee’s role in his survival, he should be able to escape any further suspicion.

Blitzwing caught himself wondering how Bumblebee might be doing and quickly shut his thoughts down when he felt a small smile rising on his face. Now was no time to be acting unusual, not with all optics on him. 

“All done,” Sumdac said suddenly, stepping back proudly. “Do you have a self repair estimate? I fear I might not have done a perfect job.”

Blitzwing reviewed his systems and nodded. “Two days to full recovery, it seems,” he said. “Thank you.”

Sumdac and Lugnut’s gazes both locked on Blitzwing, equally confused expressions adorning their faces. Blitzwing cursed himself mentally, his hands balling into fists as anger washed over his frame. 

_Stop that right now,_ he told himself firmly. _Don’t ever thank this insignificant little organic ever again._

“You’re… you’re welcome,” Sumdac said weakly.

“ _Shut up,_ ” Blitzwing growled. “T-cog. Then my signal dampener. Fix them before I rip your tiny head off.”

“Right,” Sumdac said quickly, rushing to Blitzwing’s side and lifting a drill from his toolkit. “This may sting a little.”

Blitzwing didn’t care, barely aware of the bite of the drillbit as it bored into the seam just above his hip. He hid his face from Lugnut’s prying gaze, looking pointedly in the other direction, grinding his dentae so hard that they started to ache. 

The damn Autobot had made him soft, apparently. How pathetic. Maybe it really was for the best, ditching Bumblebee the way he had, ripping himself away from the small face that had been so close to his own. How had they even gotten so close in the first place? It was disgusting. It was treason, treachery, betrayal to his cause. Blitzwing was _glad_ that it hadn’t happened, or at least, he forced himself to think so.

 _It was for the best,_ Blitzwing told himself yet again, nearly cracking a tooth as he clenched his jaw, not sure if he even believed himself. Especially because, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop wondering what Bumblebee’s lips might have tasted like.

* * *

“I don’t know, Prime. It’s so far fetched.”

“Well, they were both there. I don’t know what other conclusion to draw.”

“Why wouldn’t he just take him straight to Megatron, then, if that’s what you think?”

“I don’t know. But… it’s _Blitzwing,_ Ratchet. I don’t think that crazy mech has a thoughtful transistor in his processor.”

Bumblebee’s optics popped open sometime in the middle of the night as hushed voices made their way into his audials. What time was it? The plant was dark, instruments in the medbay beeping quietly, and Bumblebee wondered for a brief moment why he had woken up at all. He had fallen asleep hours ago, too exhausted from thinking to possibly bear the idea of staying awake any longer, but something had clearly stirred him to full attention. 

He feared for a fleeting moment that maybe Blitzwing’s faces were spinning out of control again, but his shoulders slumped when he remembered how alone he was.

He sat straight up, straining to listen to the muffled voices as they echoed thickly against the walls. A very worn-out sigh seeped into Bumblebee’s processor, a sound that could have only come from Ratchet’s vocalizer.

“He’s all clammed up, Prime,” Ratchet said, barely audible. “I don’t know what the problem is. I guess you might say I’m worried, actually.”

“Worried? About what?” That voice was definitely Optimus’s. Bumblebee slipped out of the berth and pressed his helm against the wall, cupping his servos around an audial, trying to hear as clearly as possible.

Ratchet sighed another heavy sigh. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s almost like he’s hiding something. And I don’t know why.”

“Well, it’s Bumblebee. I doubt he’d be willing to admit that he let Blitzwing do that kind of damage to him. You saw the shape he was in.”

“See, though, that’s the thing. It didn’t look like battle damage. None of it did.”

“Pardon?”

“He was covered in dirt, rocks jammed in just about every nook and cranny of his frame. Blitzwing is _big._ Damages from him would have been much larger, and unless his main method of attack was tossing Bumblebee down a bunch of cliffs, I don’t see how any of that could have come from him.”

“So you… _don’t_ think Blitzwing did all of that?”

“Of course I do. You said it yourself, Blitzwing’s not right in the processor. My worry is that… I don’t know, maybe he convinced Bumblebee that whatever he did was justified, in a way. Because technically, the damn Con didn’t seem to touch him, not at all. And psychological damage like that, that kind of deception… That isn’t something a key can fix. So yeah. I’m worried.”

Bumblebee realized with a start that he was shaking rather violently, and he dug his fingers into the wall so hard that they started to ache. They didn’t think Blitzwing had hurt him, did they? Blitzwing had done nothing but help Bumblebee. Protected him, saved his _life_ , hidden him from danger time and time again. Why would they just _assume_ Blitzwing was some kind of manipulator?

He felt ill just thinking about it. How in Primus’ name was he going to change their minds now? Blitzwing was a good mech. A little weird, sure, and kind of a freak, but definitely _good._ But he couldn’t tell them everything—no way. He couldn’t tell them about how he felt about Blitzwing, the moment they’d almost shared, the things they’d done for one another. He’d never be allowed on the field again, in a best case scenario, and tried for treason in a worst case scenario. And if word got to the Decepticons somehow, Bumblebee was certain that Megatron wouldn’t be nearly as merciful as the Autobots would.

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” Optimus’s voice was tired, but determined as ever. “I’m sure he’s fine. Probably just shaken up, confused, and definitely scared. You should have seen the way Blitzwing was clinging to him, Ratchet, it was like he was a… a trophy or something. Some kind of _prize._ It was sick.”

“I’m just glad you got there when you did,” Ratchet said earnestly. “A few more minutes and Bumblebee would’ve been in Megatron’s clutches for sure.”

“Just… make sure he stays off the field for a little while, alright? The last thing we need is for Blitzwing to start getting in his processor again. He needs some time to get back to normal.”

“You got it, Prime.”

Bumblebee felt something hot and wet slipping down his cheeks, and he wiped it away irritably, leaping back into the berth and covering his audials before he could hear any more of what they were going to say. 

They had absolutely no idea what he’d been through. Bumblebee was sure of that. Especially because the absolute last thing he wanted was for things to go back to normal.


	24. Chapter 24

Bumblebee narrowed his optics, focusing as intensely as he could. All he needed was one perfect hit and he’d be free from this battle. One precise shot, lined up just right, and he’d finally be able to claim victory.

He took a deep breath, lowered his helm, and struck. 

“Aw, come on, Bee!” Sari complained loudly as her avatar crashed to the ground, the television screen launching into a clip of Bumblebee’s character doing an obnoxious victory dance. “Can’t you go easy on me for once?”

“Nope,” Bumblebee said with a smirk, tossing his controller aside and stretching out on the couch, sighing as a few joints in his spinal strut audibly popped. 

“I just wanna beat you _once,_ ” Sari grumbled, throwing her controller at the screen, folding her arms into a rather adorable little pout. “It’s not fair for you to beat me up like this!”

“You have to practice to get better!” Bumblebee said with a shrug, getting up to pick Sari’s controller up once again, waggling it in front of her face. “Best eighteen out of thirty seven?”

“Nah,” Sari said, pointedly ignoring the controller bonking against her nose. “I’ve gotten beaten up enough for one day.”

“Just one more?” Bumblebee pressed, tapping the controller on Sari’s chin.

Sari huffed, turning her nose up. “I don’t wanna!” she said with all the classic tact of an eight year old. 

“Just one!” Bumblebee said again, finding himself growing more insistent. “ _Please?_ ”

“What’s the deal with you and this game?” Sari said, narrowing her eyes at Bumblebee suspiciously. “You’ve been playing nonstop since you got back! It’s been, like, two weeks now! Have you even slept since you’ve been here? Every time I turn around, you’re glued to this TV!”

“So what?” Bumblebee said defensively, frowning as he sat back down on the couch to start up a single player game. “I’ve slept plenty of times. And I went months without playing this, thank you very much, so excuse me for missing it! Not like I have anything else to do, given that _someone_ won’t let me leave the plant!”

One of Ratchet’s telltale irritated sighs sounded from somewhere behind Bumblebee, and he snickered as the game loaded, launching him into a boss fight with no chance to prepare whatsoever. Sari still looked inquisitive, but she curled up in Bumblebee’s lap regardless, closing her eyes as he smacked his fingers on the buttons aggressively.

He was glad Sari didn’t know this game as well as he did, because if she figured out he’d played this game six times all the way through since coming back to the plant, she’d probably give him a ton of slag for it. But with his two choices being sitting in silence and worrying nonstop about Blitzwing or attempting to turn his processor to pudding with endless video gaming, he would absolutely choose the latter.

* * *

It had taken a full week for Blitzwing’s t-cog to fully repair itself, and he had been fully expecting to relish in the returning sensation of flight, the way his treads carved through the terrain, the flawless shifting of plate over plate to form a vehicle more powerful than anything on the Decepticon force. But oddly, Blitzwing had been making as many excuses as possible to avoid working, slipping away from Megatron when assignments were handed out, trying to avoid the warlord’s scrutinizing gaze.

Lugnut, stupid as Blitzwing knew him to be, had been very quick to note Blitzwing’s incompetence. Hence why Blitzwing was currently sprawled upside down in his berth, locked in a stare-down with Lugnut, his monocular tightly focused in hopes that Lugnut would falter so Blitzwing could kick him into sheet metal.

“What are you doing?” Lugnut said eventually, still unblinking.

“Nothing,” Blitzwing said. “Quite obviously.”

“You’ve been avoiding your duties,” Lugnut continued.

“I haven’t been feeling well,” Blitzwing said, plastering a sarcastic pout on his face.

“You’ve been in perfect shape for a week,” Lugnut growled.

“ _Perfect?_ ” Blitzwing drawled, sticking his leg toward the looming ceiling of the mine, the thick scar glinting in the faint light. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Your leg is perfectly functional,” Lugnut barked, his short temper clearly reaching its limit. 

Blitzwing felt his grin widen, and he grabbed onto his thigh, pointing his pede gracefully. “But it’s so ugly!” he said sorrowfully. “How can I do ballet with a scar like this? No one will ever hire someone so flawed!”

“Would you shut it for once, Blitzwing?” Lugnut snapped. “Quit griping about your injuries and do your duty to Lord Megatron. He deserves your undying loyalty, not your laziness.”

Blitzwing felt anger crash over him like a truck, and he snarled, picking up a nearby datapad and flinging it at Lugnut’s optic, narrowly missing his target. “Stop _pestering_ me!” he shouted, swinging upright on the berth and folding his arms furiously. “I don’t _want_ to do anything. I’ve been walking for _months._ I _deserve_ a fragging _break!_ ”

“And I’ve been serving our Lord and Master with twice the effort to make up for your disappearance!” Lugnut retorted. “Our liege has requested that you join me on the mission today. I will leave in five cycles. Do not be late.”

“ _Whatever_ ,” Blitzwing hissed. “I’ll be there, you oil-leaking moron.”

Lugnut grunted and stomped from the room, leaving Blitzwing in silence once again. He sighed, picking up his datapad and laying back down on the berth, skimming through a few pages of the reading material Megatron had assigned to him. Not much of the content truly reached his processor, but all that mattered was that he was reading it.

And he certainly wasn’t going out on the field, even if Lugnut had requested him to do so. While his frame may have been in working shape, Blitzwing didn’t trust himself to behave as a Decepticon should while on a mission. 

He knew very well that, someday, he was going to have to attack Bumblebee again. He was going to have to fire at him, attempt to hurt him, do whatever it took to get what it was that Megatron wanted. 

But today was not going to be that day.

* * *

Bumblebee’s optics were starting to ache from the strain of staring at the television, but he ignored the pain, fingers dancing around the controller as he attempted to beat the final boss for the seventh time. He knew all of its moves like the back of his servo now, barely even needing to look at the screen in order to dodge and parry the attacks.

_Maybe I need to get a new game_ , Bumblebee thought tiredly as his avatar leaped toward its aggressor and buried a sword into its neck. _Or just play online for a while. Is there an extra difficult setting on this game…? Maybe I could enter a competition or something._

Bumblebee was about to deliver a finishing blow when he heard the door to the base slide open, and he nearly smashed the TV screen as he chucked his controller aside, leaping to his feet to greet Optimus and Prowl as they returned from their mission. Sari yelped as she crashed to the floor, sitting up with a scowl.

“Ow! Little warning next time, maybe?”

“Sorry—hey, Optimus, hi, hey, what’s up?” Bumblebee asked, a little breathless as he circled around his comrades. “How was your mission? Get anything done? Find an Allspark fragment?”

“Someone’s feeling restless,” Prowl said with a smirk. 

“Shut it,” Bumblebee said, scowling. “How’d it go? Who was—uh—who was there?”

Optimus gave Bumblebee a bit of a strange look before shaking his helm, dusting some dirt from his frame. 

“Just Lugnut again,” he said, and Bumblebee prayed the disappointment wasn’t showing in his face. “He was stealing supplies from a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Building materials and the like.”

“We think the Decepticons might be working on some sort of construction project,” Prowl said knowingly, nodding to Ratchet as the medic joined the conversation. 

“Building?” Ratchet said, folding his arms irritably. “What are they doing playing arts and crafts when the planet is scattered with Allspark fragments?”

“I don’t know,” Optimus said gravely. “But I do know that we need to figure out what it is and stop it as soon as we can.”

“Yeah, right, yeah, absolutely,” Bumblebee said, trying to follow along while his processor spun around one single question over and over. “So—uh—Megatron wasn’t there, was he? And neither was Blitzwing? Just wondering, I mean, maybe they split up or something, I don’t know. You’re sure you didn’t see Blitzwing? Or—or Megatron?”

Three pairs of rather suspicious optics landed on Bumblebee, and he grinned nervously, putting his hands up defensively.

“Hey, doc bot won’t let me leave the plant, so I wanna at least _try_ to help out with stuff,” he said, his voice cracking quite obviously. “And I just wanna make sure that… you know… we’re doing everything we can to kick Decepticon tailpipe, you know?”

The questioning gazes lingered for quite some time before Ratchet sighed, rubbing his forehead.

“I’m just trying to keep you safe, kid,” he said, giving Optimus a very pointed look. Bumblebee felt anger surging through his sensornet, and he copied Ratchet’s stiff pose, crossing his arms and frowning as hard as he could.

“I _am_ safe!” Bumblebee said shortly. “My frame is totally fine! I’m not going to be useful if you keep me cooped up in this plant all the time! So are you going to tell me the _real_ reason you won’t let me out of the base, or are you going to keep acting like it’s because you’re worried about my safety?”

Ratchet blinked in surprise at Bumblebee’s outburst, and Bumblebee felt a strange urge to smile with pride. _That’ll show him to lie to me,_ he thought, tightening his arms over his chest to show that he meant business.

“Listen, Bumblebee,” Optimus said, his voice gentle. “Can… can we talk to you somewhere private?”

Bumblebee suddenly felt like he was deflating, an oddly ill sensation settling in his tanks. He’d heard what Optimus and Ratchet had said about Blitzwing, and there wasn’t a single part of him that wanted to let them continue to let their ideas fester, but he had a terrible feeling that they wouldn’t listen to him even if he tried. He took a deep breath, closing his optics for a moment and thinking about Blitzwing, running through every caring thing the triple changer had done for him.

Even if they didn’t want to listen, Bumblebee would at least try. Blitzwing deserved that much.

“Yeah,” Bumblebee said as bravely as possible, setting his jaw determinedly. “That’d be good, I think.”

* * *

“Blitzwing.”

Blitzwing jumped nearly ten feet in the air as the chilling voice reached his audials, and he rocketed upright as fast as he could, hands locked submissively behind his back.

“Megatron,” he said quietly, nodding politely.

Megatron’s expression was anything but pleasant as he leaned in Blitzwing’s stone doorway, arms folded powerfully over his chest, optics narrowed to angry red slits. “Lugnut has informed me that you did not join him on the collection of materials for my space bridge today,” he said coldly, drumming his digits rhythmically against his arm. 

Blitzwing nodded in quiet agreement, his frame tense. “That is correct,” he said.

“Why not?”

Blitzwing bit his lip, digging for an excuse and drawing nothing but blanks. “I haven’t been feeling well,” he tried lamely.

“You never feel ‘well,’” Megatron said snidely. “Try again.”

“I—I don’t have an answer, my liege,” Blitzwing said. “I simply don’t feel as though I would be effective on the field at the moment.”

“And why would that be?” Megatron asked.

Blitzwing jerked his shoulders in a nervous shrug. “I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, hoping that Megatron would accept a half-truth. “I’m... rather out of practice, I suppose. I don’t believe I can serve you properly at the moment.”

“Blitzwing,” Megatron crooned, his tone suddenly dangerous, stepping forward. “It’s alright. I understand.”

Blitzwing blinked a few times, lifting his optic toward Megatron, monocular searching frantically for the trace of a lie on Megatron’s face. 

“You… do?” Blitzwing said, speaking as carefully as he could.

“Of course,” Megatron said, walking closer to Blitzwing, his pace almost lazy, setting Blitzwing on edge. “You’ve been through a rather traumatic experience. Three months all alone in the wilderness of an alien planet… who could possibly recover from such an expedition in just a couple of weeks?”

Red flags were firing nonstop in Blitzwing’s processor, but he forced himself to stand still, nodding. “I… suppose that must be the case,” he said.

“Though I must say, your techniques for survival were rather ingenious,” Megatron continued. “Professor Sumdac informed me that you appeared to have performed some repairs on yourself.”

Blitzwing’s spark dropped into his tanks, and Megatron smirked, his optics flashing.

“Might I ask how you managed to do so?” Megatron purred, stepping so close that Blitzwing had to tilt his helm up to maintain eye contact.

Blitzwing opened his mouth to form a lie, only emitting a painful choked sound. Megatron’s smirk widened.

“We’ve been in high need for someone who can act as a medic,” Megatron said. “And the fact that you managed to repair yourself while all of your weapons were offline… you never fail to impress me, Blitzwing.”

“Megatron,” Blitzwing stammered, “I—”

“Unless, of course, you were _not_ alone,” Megatron said, his voice sending prickles down Blitzwing’s spine. “But you wouldn’t lie to me about such a thing, would you, my loyal triple changer?”

Blitzwing didn’t know what to do, simply staring at Megatron, his mouth slightly open, attempting to speak through a staticky vocalizer. 

“Was it the little yellow one, Blitzwing?” Megatron hummed. “He was the one whose signal we located, after all.”

“N-no,” Blitzwing managed. “I told you, I was—”

Blitzwing gagged as a massive servo wrapped hard around his throat, sealing the lines that carried energon to his processor with deadly precision. He instinctively grabbed at his neck, gasping, only able to watch as Megatron carelessly lifted him from the ground, bringing them face to face.

“You owe that Autobot nothing, do you understand me?” Megatron said, his voice low and his expression lethal. “I don’t care if you feel indebted to him in any way. The Autobot will receive no mercy from you under any circumstances.”

Blitzwing struggled against Megatron’s grip, his thoughts growing fuzzy and thick as he nodded fervently. Megatron smirked once again and released Blitzwing to the ground, and Blitzwing coughed a few times, his vision spinning as he tried to regain his equilibrium.

“The only reason I will overlook such treason, Blitzwing, is because you were in a life threatening situation,” Megatron said, his tone tantalizing once again. “Self preservation makes us act in questionable ways. Trust me, I’m well aware of that. But you have much to give to the Decepticon cause, and I expect you to give it. Thus, your loyalty to me must not waver again.”

He was so wrong, Blitzwing thought, swallowing hard. He was right, of course, but he was so, so wrong. Self preservation had become unimportant to Blitzwing months ago. But he nodded regardless, unwilling to admit such a thing, determined to stay wrapped in whatever lies he could cling to.

“Understood, my liege,” Blitzwing mumbled.

“Wonderful,” Megatron said warmly. “You will assist Lugnut in gathering more materials tomorrow. Perhaps in the meantime, you should clear your thoughts.”

“Understood.”

Megatron’s grin faded as he strolled from Blitzwing’s quarters, and Blitzwing sat upright, rubbing his neck with a groan. 

He could not have been more lucky. Though Megatron was right, in a sense—Blitzwing couldn’t have sympathy for Bumblebee. Both of their lives would be at risk if he did. He stood up, opting to take Megatron’s advice and clear his processor, completely unwilling to sit around and wait for Megatron to pry more information out of him.

Bumblebee had once mentioned how much he longed to fly, talking wistfully about how soothing it sounded, how wonderful it must be to take to the skies. And Blitzwing hadn’t been given the chance to stretch his wings in quite some time now.

He crept out of the base and walked outside, temporarily relishing in the sensation of transformation as his thrusters activated, his engine roaring as he shot into the sky. A frigid breeze skated across his plating, and he sighed quietly as he climbed toward the clouds overhead, in desperate need of the unmatched cold they carried.

* * *

Bumblebee had stopped listening to Optimus about five minutes ago, keeping his face firmly stuck on an angry pout and his arms crossed defensively over his chest as Optimus rambled on and on and on.

“And we’re just worried about you, Bumblebee,” Optimus was saying, not that Bumblebee had much of a clue what he was referring to specifically. “We know this must’ve been a difficult thing for you to go through, being stuck with Blitzwing, of all mechs, but—”

Bumblebee suddenly frowned, sitting up straighter. “Okay, yeah, that,” he said, cutting Optimus off sharply. “Could you stop saying it like that?”

“Saying what like what?” Optimus asked.

“I don’t know, talking about Blitzwing like the way you are,” Bumblebee said irritably, sinking back down and sticking his lower lip back out. “You talk about him like he’s the worst thing to ever walk on this planet. It’s annoying.”

Ratchet sighed, ignoring the glare he received from Optimus at doing so. “Kid, listen,” Ratchet said, kneeling in front of Bumblebee. “Prime told me that he saw you with Blitzwing. That Blitzwing was holding onto you like he owned you, that—”

“No, he wasn’t!” Bumblebee said angrily. “He was the one that brought me back here in the first place! He doesn’t think he _owns_ me or anything! What’s _wrong_ with you?”

Optimus looked strained, glancing at Ratchet. “Bumblebee, this is Blitzwing we’re talking about,” he said, clearly trying to sound comforting but only succeeding in annoying Bumblebee even further. “Maybe it… maybe it seemed like he was being nice, from your perspective, but—”

“I was _there,_ I think I know how it _seemed,_ ” Bumblebee spat.

“Would you stop interrupting us?” Ratchet snapped. “This is what we’ve been worried about! Blitzwing is a _Decepticon._ His job description is _deceiving._ I know it might seem like he was helping you, but—”

“He _was!_ ”

“Stop _interrupting me!_ ”

“Ratchet!” Optimus said, his tone full of warning. “Bee, it’s alright to be confused. I’m sure Blitzwing did some things for you that were very kind. Probably.”

“But he did those things to get in your processor,” Ratchet said, much less delicately. “And… okay, this might sound a little odd, coming from me, but… you can’t get soft for him, do you know what I mean?”

Bumblebee’s spark twitched, and he sat upright once again, scowling as hard as he could. “What are you implying by that?” he asked darkly.

“I think you know what I’m implying,” Ratchet said, rivaling Bumblebee’s frown with an even deeper one of his own. “I know it’s been tough, being on this planet all alone and everything, but—”

“ _What are you implying?_ ”

“It’s not going to happen!” Ratchet said, his face contorting into a frown unlike anything Bumblebee had ever seen. “For Primus’ sake, Bumblebee, he’s a Decepticon. It’s his _job_ to get you confused like this! It's his _livelihood_! He wants you to let your guard down! It’s the easiest trick in the Decepticon book! Trust me, I’ve seen it, over and over again!”

“He _helped_ me!” Bumblebee said, his voice rising in volume. “Just because you two _think_ he punched me down a cliff doesn’t mean he _did!_ I _fell!_ ”

Optimus’s face went pale. “You… heard that?” he said.

“Yeah! I did!” Bumblebee said, practically shouting now. “And you’re both _wrong!_ He saved my aft, you know! I’d be dead if not for him!”

“He helped you to protect his own sorry aft!” Ratchet yelled.

“Ratchet, don’t shout at him—”

“He doesn’t _care_ about you, Bumblebee!” Ratchet continued, ignoring Optimus’s pleas. “He _used_ you! For all you know, he was taking you straight to Megatron, and who knows what they would have done with you there? Certainly nothing _good!_ ”

“You know, just because you’re old doesn’t mean you know everything!” Bumblebee snapped, jumping to his feet and jamming a palm into Ratchet’s chest, pushing him back hard. “You don’t know _slag!_ You don’t know anything about him! _Nothing!_ ”

“Don’t push, Bumblebee, we just want to discuss this with you—”

“And neither do _you!_ ” Ratchet fired back, shoving Bumblebee in return. 

“Bumblebee,” Optimus said loudly, clearly desperate for the arguing to end. “You’ve been through a lot. Sit down and relax, alright? You still have a lot of healing to do, and you—”

“No!” Bumblebee hollered, clenching his servos into fists. “Frag this! I’m out of here!”

“Oh, no, you aren’t,” Ratchet said, grabbing onto one of Bumblebee’s shoulders. “You’re to stay in this base. That’s an _order._ ”

“Yeah?” Bumblebee said, shrugging Ratchet off ferociously, his spark pounding in his throat. “Make me, you rusty old pile of bolts!”

Bumblebee took his moment of freedom to run as fast as he could through the base, bolting toward the door, ignoring the way Ratchet was shouting behind him. He hated arguing with his teammates, but their unwillingness to listen was bringing him close to tears, and he knew only one thing for sure: he had to get out of this base. Just a quick drive around the block would surely make him feel better, maybe off to those woods Prowl had dragged him through. Anywhere but the base.

Sari called something confusedly after Bumblebee as he darted into the night, and as much as it made his spark ache to leave her without an explanation, he couldn’t risk letting Ratchet catch up to him. He kicked his legs up and transformed as fast as he could, his engine revving loudly as he floored it out of the base, leaving nothing behind but a trail of exhaust.

* * *

Blitzwing was surprised at how good it felt just to fly with no destination, with no need to slow down or focus on where he was going. The air around him was beyond freezing, droplets of icy water clinging to his armor, and he banked hard to the left to dive into another cloud as soon as the one he was in disappeared.

Primus, he loved the cold.

The city below him glistened, its details practically invisible from such an altitude, and he circled around it a few times to simply admire the tiny pinpricks of light as they shimmered through the dark evening air. It was still unusual, to see so much artificial light, but Blitzwing supposed it was pretty in its own way. Perhaps not as glorious as a sky splashed only with stars, but it was certainly something to behold.

He dropped a few thousand feet until he was part of the skyline itself, chasing after a few cars from just a mile or so above, watching them weave through the streets like little nanobots in a maze. They were so colorful, all sorts of shades of blue and black and grey and—

Blitzwing dropped another thousand feet when a familiar color crossed his vision, and then he sharply drew back up. 

Yellow. 

_There is more than one yellow car on this planet_ , Blitzwing told himself harshly, tilting a wing to the side and rocketing away from the city. _You’re out here to stop thinking about him. Stop. Stop!_

He flew across the lake for a few minutes, keeping his processor as steady as possible, barely noticing as he banked back toward the city, scanning for the yellow car once again. Just to be sure, he told himself. He wouldn’t be able to focus when he returned to the mine if he had Bumblebee on the processor. Find the yellow car again, confirm that it isn’t Bumblebee, then keep flying around. Taking to the air had been so relaxing until this point—there was no sense in ruining it over a single car.

He caught another splash of yellow on his HUD and turned toward it, then quickly flew away. That color was far too dark to be Bumblebee’s. 

_See?_ Blitzwing thought, turning his nose skyward and corkscrewing toward the clouds. _Not Bumblebee. Stop thinking about him. It’s not worth it._

He flew around for another few minutes before gliding back down, doing a few more laps around the city before catching another streak of yellow. Much as he tried to resist, he couldn’t help but lower his altitude just a bit, watching the little compact zip through the streets, heading toward the outskirts of the city. His spark trembled at the sight, swelling as if trying to escape his chassis entirely.

No human would ever drive a car that recklessly. Nor would any human choose to paint their vehicle with such a tacky black racing stripe.

_Where are you headed, Bumblebee?_ Blitzwing thought, unconsciously following after the little speed racer. _Towards the woods? And here I thought you hated nature._

* * *

The sound of asphalt screeching under his tires was a feeling Bumblebee would never get sick of.

It wasn’t like he would get pulled over, being a hero of the city and whatnot. Or so Bumblebee hoped, given that he was blowing through stop lights like nobody’s business, whipping around corners as he took them twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. 

For quite some time, Bumblebee didn’t even know where he was heading. He just wanted to _go_ , wherever his frame may take him, ignoring every traffic law as he roared away from the base. Ratchet’s slow ambulance mode would never catch up to him at this speed, if Optimus had even bothered to send someone after him.

Bumblebee suspected that he hadn’t. Optimus was the type to hold Ratchet back, to tell him to give Bumblebee some space so they could talk about things later. Not that Bumblebee had any intention of discussing Blitzwing with them ever again. They wouldn’t understand no matter how hard he tried to explain that Blitzwing wasn’t mindlessly evil like Megatron was, so he’d keep his thoughts to himself. For the rest of his life, if he had to.

Though Bumblebee did wish he could stop thinking about Blitzwing, even if just for a little bit. The triple changer had been on his mind ever since they’d been separated, and it was almost starting to freak Bumblebee out a bit. Every plane that soared over the base made him twitch, every night was plagued with dreams about him. Even now, it was almost like he could hear the whine of Blitzwing’s turbines against his audials.

Very clearly, actually. Too clearly.

Bumblebee shifted his focus upwards and felt his spark do a backflip, nearly crashing into a car in front of him. He’d never seen a plane with that color scheme before, not one made by humans, and he couldn’t mistake that shade of purple even if he tried. 

A single thought dominated Bumblebee’s processor: _Blitzwing was okay._

Relief washed over him, though the feeling was quickly replaced by panic, wondering if Blitzwing had seen his life signal and was being sent to kill him. He took a sharp left toward the edge of the city, hoping to get lost in the trees and escape his inevitable fate.

Blitzwing followed.

_Scrap_ , Bumblebee thought, veering off the road and smashing through a few bushes in an attempt to get under the cover of trees faster. _Scrap, scrap, I’m so dead. My last words to Ratchet were ‘make me, you rusty old pile of bolts.’ That’s fair, actually. I think that’d be the case no matter how I—focus, Bumblebee!_

Bumblebee flicked his headlights off and transformed back to root mode, skidding on his heels and drawing his stingers as he slammed his back to a tree, panting. Had he lost him? Bumblebee strained his audials to hear, his spark sinking with dread as the sound of a jet engine grew louder and louder. He hesitantly opened his comm, clutched with a temporary urge to call for help, taking a deep breath before closing off communications once again.

He knew he should ping the Autobots now and get himself to safety. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, even as the deafening sound of snapping branches ruptured the air. Bumblebee winced as Blitzwing landed heavily just meters from where he was standing, his spark tying itself into a knot. He pointed his stingers at the triple changer, trying not to tremble.

Blitzwing’s cannons lowered with a few loud clicks, and Bumblebee raised his stingers higher, vibrating so hard that his plating started to rattle.

“Blitzwing,” he said, trying to overlook the massive crack in his voice.

“Bumblebee,” Blitzwing responded, lowering his shoulders, his cannons glowing with violent energy.

They stood in silence for an agonizingly long time, neither of them moving a single piston. Bumblebee had never felt so frozen, trying to think of what he should do. Should he attack? Should he run? Should he say something?

Words hadn’t failed him yet. It was worth a shot.

“Your… leg looks better,” Bumblebee said stiffly.

“So does you chest,” Blitzwing said, his jaw twitching.

Silence.

“Going out for a flight?”

“Clearly.”

Silence.

“For fun?”

“Someone once suggested that it could be fun.”

Silence.

Bumblebee chewed on his lower lip, wondering if his chest plate was going to fall off from how hard his spark was pounding. “Are you… are you gonna shoot me or not?” he asked, his voice tiny.

“I should,” Blitzwing said, a cruel glint in his optic, monocular telescoping in and out wildly.

Bumblebee briefly wondered if Blitzwing’s spark was going as crazy as his was. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said, trying to sound firm.

Blitzwing paused before raising his shoulders almost imperceptibly. “No,” he said softly.

“Weapons down, then?”

“I suppose.”

“On three?”

“If you insist. One…”

“Two…”

“Three.”

Bumblebee’s stingers retracted as Blitzwing’s cannons lifted back toward the sky, the cold blue glow emanating from within them slowly fading into nothing. Bumblebee swallowed hard, lowering his shaking hands, clenching them into fists in an attempt to look less pathetic. Keeping the distance between them as large as possible, he peered at Blitzwing’s leg and chuckled dryly.

“Nice repair job,” he said, pointing at the thick scar adorning Blitzwing’s knee. 

Blitzwing growled, his face spinning to red with a _whirr_ that made Bumblebee’s spark jump into his throat. “Not all of us have a magical Allspark key, _bug,_ ” he spat.

“At least you can walk now,” Bumblebee offered, shrugging. “Who fixed that? Lugnut?”

Blitzwing’s face spun back to blue, his crimson optic rolling. “Megatron called in a… consultant.”

“Oo, secretive,” Bumblebee teased weakly, looking at the ground. Did his arms normally just dangle like this? What did he usually do with his hands? He tried putting them on his hips, decided that looked too snarky, but folding them in front of his stomach looked too childish. Where did hands go?

“You’re nervous,” Blitzwing noted quietly, and Bumblebee glanced up to see that the triple changer had taken a few steps toward him, helm cocked curiously.

“Uh, a bit, considering you’re my… enemy and whatnot,” Bumblebee said, his voice cracking once again.

Blitzwing chuckled, suddenly looking rather exhausted. “Yes, I suppose I am,” he said quietly. 

More silence rang in the air, a deafening silence that made Bumblebee more restless than he’d ever felt. He settled on keeping his hands dangling at his sides, hoping he looked nonchalant.

“I—” Bumblebee swallowed hard, looking at the ground. “I’ve been kinda worried about you.”

“Oh?” Blitzwing said calmly. “Why’s that?”

“Well—you know—haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks,” Bumblebee said. “I thought Megatron might’ve—I dunno—I sorta thought maybe Megatron found out that I helped you. That you helped me. And that he didn’t take it well.”

“He did,” Blitzwing said, his voice casual, though Bumblebee could see the obvious tremble that ran through Blitzwing’s massive frame. “In a sense. He believes you and I helped each other out of mere self preservation.”

“Hey, the Autobots think that too!” Bumblebee said, smiling weakly. “I think they think you threw me off a cliff or something.”

Blitzwing’s face spun to black, his crimson grin wide as he giggled. “Why would I do that?” he mused.

“To kill me. Duh.”

“Oh, no, if I killed you, I’d do a much better job. I’d make it hurt.”

“Thanks,” Bumblebee said dryly, fighting back a smile as Blitzwing cackled.

More silence.

“Was it?” Bumblebee asked.

Blitzwing’s helm tilted curiously, his face rotating back to blue. “Was it what?”

“Was it… ‘self preservation?’” Bumblebee asked meekly.

Blitzwing sighed, claiming a few more feet of distance between them. “You know the answer to that, Bumblebee,” he said softly.

“I mean—yeah, but like—I don’t know,” Bumblebee spluttered. “Ratchet and Optimus, they’re convinced that you—that you—I don’t know, that you didn’t actually want to help me, that you were just tricking me, and I—they’re getting me all confused, and they won’t listen to me when I say that you were helping me and that I was helping you, and that it wasn’t just because I didn’t wanna die. I mean, I didn’t, and I still don’t, and I—”

“Bumblebee.”

Bumblebee paused, looking up at Blitzwing, who was standing even closer now, close enough to send Bumblebee’s spark into a whole series of acrobatic flips. 

“Yeah?” he asked nervously.

“It was,” Blitzwing said. “At first. You know that as well as I do.”

“I—well, yeah, it was for me too,” Bumblebee said, stumbling over his words. “But then it was—I don’t know when, but it was—I don’t know.”

“You started acting strange at some point,” Blitzwing said, raising a brow, looking almost smug. “And I think I may have figured out why.”

“You were weird too!” Bumblebee said defensively, crossing his arms. “You got all… distant and confusing after you told me about that—that _stuff_ , and that made me feel all weird, and then you—you kept doing all this nice stuff, and it—you’re—”

“I know, Bumblebee,” Blitzwing said dryly. “I was there.”

Bumblebee scoffed loudly, rolling his optics hard. “Can you shut up and let me talk?”

“No,” Blitzwing said, suddenly dropping to one knee, holding himself at Bumblebee’s level. “You’ve done enough talking for one evening.”

Bumblebee’s intake closed, and he stared at Blitzwing, mouth hanging slightly open. “So—here’s a good question—back when—before Prime showed up—you were gonna—I was gonna—we were—that was—was that—”

“For Primus’ sake, stop talking,” Blitzwing hissed.

Blitzwing’s servo drifted forward just slightly, and that was all the invitation Bumblebee needed. He felt his frame move of its own accord as he rushed forward, jamming himself into Blitzwing’s hand and grabbing onto his face, fingers quivering as he finally, _finally_ closed the gap between their lips.

Blitzwing didn’t hesitate to tighten his grip on Bumblebee’s waist, pulling him close, pressing their frames together as they kissed, shaking almost as badly as Bumblebee was. Bumblebee’s fingers skimmed along Blitzwing’s cheeks, refusing to let him go, making a terribly needy sound when Blitzwing tried to pull back, dragging him back in for more.

He couldn’t breathe. His spark felt like it was shooting fireworks inside his chassis. Blitzwing’s lips were far softer than Bumblebee would have expected, warm even against the flaming heat of Bumblebee’s faceplates. One of Blitzwing’s rough servos traced up to Bumblebee’s chest, clearly seeking to feel the thumping of Bumblebee’s frantic spark.

It may have been but a few seconds that they were kissing, or it may have been hours. But when Bumblebee felt Blitzwing pull back a second time, he didn’t fight it, simply resting his forehead against Blitzwing’s as he tried to get his vents to start cycling air properly once again.

“You’re shaking,” Bumblebee noted, completely breathless.

“ _You’re_ shaking,” Blitzwing said, and though Bumblebee’s optics were still closed, he could feel the movement of Blitzwing’s face as he smiled.

“You’re shaking harder.”

Blitzwing chuckled, pressing his helm more firmly against Bumblebee’s, a servo tracing the outline of Bumblebee’s waistline.

“We can’t do this,” Blitzwing breathed, his digits pressing against Bumblebee’s back.

“Yeah,” Bumblebee whispered. “I know.”

“If Megatron finds out—”

“I know. And I mean, if the Autobots find out—”

“I know.”

They sat in more silence for quite some time, both of them trembling with cold and fear and excitement all bundled into one. Bumblebee swallowed, moving his hands back up to Blitzwing’s cheeks, attempting to memorize the shape of his faceplates with his thumbs, wondering if he’d ever get to touch them again.

Without prompting, Blitzwing’s face ghosted toward his, and Bumblebee didn’t protest, kissing Blitzwing back gently, his breath stolen once again.

“This is a bad idea,” Blitzwing murmured against Bumblebee’s lips.

“Definitely a top three in bad ideas I’ve had, yeah,” Bumblebee agreed softly.

“Only top three?”

“I’ve done some dumb slag. One time, I—”

“Shh.”

They intertwined one more time before Bumblebee forced himself to pull back, gazing into Blitzwing’s optics, biting his lower lip nervously.

“Wanna do it anyway?” he asked.

Blitzwing’s helm tilted to the side. “Do what, exactly?”

“I don’t know. You, me, being an… us. I don’t know. Who’s gonna find out? I can keep a secret.”

Blitzwing chuckled, a thumb grazing along Bumblebee’s jawline. “I seriously doubt that, Bumblebee,” he said.

“I’ve kept _your_ secret,” Bumblebee said, grinning. “I can keep secrets if they’re for you. And I mean, we’re dead if we caught for… this, anyway. Why not make it worth it? Might as well get kissed a lot if we’re gonna die. And I… I can still fight you if I have to, if it means getting to do this. I mean it.”

Blitzwing stared at Bumblebee for quite some time, and Bumblebee stared back, more determined than he’d ever been.

“That’s a terrible idea,” Blitzwing said finally, his lips twitching into a small smile. “But I can’t find a good reason to say no.”

“Except, you know, different factions, we’re enemies, your leader will kill us, my leader will imprison us, that kinda stuff,” Bumblebee said sarcastically. 

“I said a _good_ reason,” Blitzwing said quietly. “Are you cold?”

“Huh?”

“Answer me.”

“Uh… no,” Bumblebee said. “Not really. You’re pretty warm. I’m good.”

“Good,” Blitzwing said, and Bumblebee’s racing processor went blissfully blank as Blitzwing pulled him in once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap :)
> 
> thank you all so, so much for joining me on this insanely slow journey. i'm so, so grateful for the support i've gotten on this fic, and i can promise, there's more blitzbee to come. i'm not done with these two yet, not even close, so if you want more, please subscribe to me so you can get updates or follow me on [my tumblr](https://morethanmeetstheass.tumblr.com/) or [my twitter](https://twitter.com/sunaspeaks_) for info :)
> 
> it's been a pleasure to write this, and i can't thank you all enough for your support. thank you all so, so much, and i hope you all enjoyed <3


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